Edition June 1, 2008
SYSTEMS OF SUSTAINABILITY
Managing the production of goods and provision of services for a sustainable future
consumermatics- (noun) a group of related subjects, including geography, geology, biology and history, concerned with the study of the human use of natural resources to maintain the necessities of life.
consumerate- (adjective) able to trace the impact of purchasing, or partaking of goods, on the natural resources which produced them. consumeracy- (noun) ability to to trace the impact of purchasing, or taking goods, on the natural resources which produced them. (ie numeracy and literacy) natural economy- (noun) the management of natural resources for human production
political economy- (noun) the government of people for human production
Version 9 (1999) Compiled by
Denis Bellamy Natural Economy Research Unit National Museum of Wales Cardiff CF1 3NP
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CONTENTS
RESOURCES AND PEOPLE: AN EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVE ...... 10 FOR MANAGING CHANGE...... 10 1 Environmental Education...... 10 2 The Human Ecological Niche As A Focus Of Education...... 21 3 Environmental Accounting ...... 21 4 Our Role in Changing the Face of the Earth ...... 23 5 Consumermatics The General Model ...... 24 6 Importance Of An Historical Perspective ...... 26 7 Agrarianism and World Development ...... 28 8 Life In Complex Farming Societies ...... 30 9 Conceptual Plan of An Agricultural Fiefdom ...... 31 10 Birth of Consumer Societies ...... 35 11 Industrialism and World Development...... 39 12 Bringing Industrialism Into Education...... 41 13 Controls On Industrialism...... 43 14 Educational Advantages...... 44 15 The Rio Environment Summit...... 45 16 Important Action Points Of Agenda 21 ...... 50 16 Systems of Sustainability...... 56 CONSUMERMATICS: A SUBJECT FOR LIVING IN A ...... 70 CONSUMER SOCIETY ...... 70 1 The Terms 'Nature' And 'Natural'...... 70 2 Nature Conforms To Physical Laws ...... 70 3 The Global Economy ...... 70 4 Human Resources ...... 71 5 New Knowledge Systems Are Needed ...... 72 6 Economics And Environment...... 73 7 Ecosacy ...... 75 8 Philosophy of Consumermatics ...... 76 9 Markets and Trading Complexes ...... 79 10 Natural Economy and Political Economy...... 81 11 Origins of Natural Resources...... 83 12 Flows In A Natural Economy ...... 85 13 Processes And Systems...... 87 14 Cross-curricular Perspective ...... 89 15 Educational Objectives ...... 105 NATURAL ECONOMY: MANAGING LOCAL PRODUCTION AND ITS ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT...... 108 1 Definition of Natural Economy...... 108 2 The Knowledge Maps ...... 109 3 Relationship of natural economy to consumermatics ...... 112 4 Natural Economy and the Monetary Economy...... 114 5 Different Kinds of Natural Economy...... 116 6 Different Social Production Systems ...... 118 7 Ethnoecology and Ecomenes ...... 121 8 The Conservation Culture...... 121 9 Management Systems ...... 122
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10 Sustainable Economic Development ...... 125 11 Focus On Landscapes...... 126 12 The Historical Dimension...... 128 13 The Information Clusters ...... 129 14 Origins of natural resources ...... 137 15 Examples of Expansion Nets ...... 140 ETHNOECOLOGY: THE STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL CARE-CULTURES144 1 Caring Behaviour ...... 144 2 Human Evolution And Environment ...... 146 3 Importance of Cultural Evolution in Education...... 147 4 Education And Social Evolution...... 148 5 Human Control Of Evolution...... 150 6 Conservation As A Cultural Trait...... 151 7 The Welsh Conservation Model ...... 152 8 A Management Orientated Curriculum...... 152 9 Conservation Management ...... 155 10 The Policy Model...... 158 11 Environmental Impact Planning...... 160 12 Research Models...... 164 13 The Site Management Model...... 166 14 Modelling Socio-historical Heritage ...... 168 15 Systems Thinking' And Conservation Management...... 170 16 Importance Of Systems Thinking ...... 173 17 Stocks Flows And Feedback...... 174 18 Goal-conflict ...... 175 19 Management Plans ...... 175 'NEIGHBOURHOOD' AS AN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE...... 178 1 Environment And Planning...... 178 2 Education and Planning ...... 181 3 Analytical Topography...... 183 4 Geography of 'Place'...... 186 5 Methodology Of Analytical Topography...... 187 6 Biology of 'Place' ...... 188 7 General Educational Aims...... 188 8 Specific Educational Aims...... 190 9 Resources For Analytical Topography...... 192 10 Summary of Aims ...... 195 11 Education To Cope With Change ...... 196 12 Solving Real Problems...... 197 13 Problems Produced by Change ...... 199 14 Rationale For Solving Real Problems...... 199 15 Criteria For Judging Suitability Of Problems ...... 200 16 Examples of Real Problems...... 202 17 Local Weather...... 205 18 Community Use of Materials and Energy...... 209 19 Mobilising Communities for Change...... 214 20 Travelling Through The Home Landscape ...... 218 21 The Teacher In Problem-solving...... 222 22 Aids To Information Handling...... 223 23 Community and Environmental Action Plans ...... 224
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24 National Enquiries and Influential Publications ...... 225 25 Information Capability...... 226 26 Information Awareness ...... 226 27 Why Should We Bother? ...... 228 28 Local Environmental Appraisal ...... 228 29 Involving Local People ...... 230 30 Follow-up Action ...... 232 31 Building Environmental Care-Communities ...... 232 32 Participating In The 'Local Agenda 21'...... 236 THE WORLD CONSERVATION STRATEGY ...... 241 1 Unlimited Resources? ...... 241 2 The World Conservation Strategy...... 244 3 Problems Of Consumerism...... 245 4 Importance Of Conservation...... 247 5 Why A World Strategy Is Needed...... 248 6 Who Needs The Strategy?...... 248 7 Guide To The Strategy...... 251 8 Priority Problem Areas...... 252 9 Priority Actions...... 254 10 Main Obstacles...... 255 11 Other Strategies...... 256 12 Securing The Food Supply...... 258 13 Actions On Food Supply...... 260 14 Stopping Desertification ...... 261 15 Action On Forests ...... 263 16 Marine Life ...... 263 17 Action On Oceans ...... 265 18 Maintaining Biodiversity ...... 266 19 Threats To Biodiversity ...... 267 20 Why Does Wildlife Matter?...... 267 21 Preventing Extinction...... 269 22 Getting Organised For Conservation ...... 272 23 Preparing A National Strategy ...... 272 24 Policy Making...... 273 25 Costs Of Conservation ...... 276 26 Planning And Use-Allocation ...... 277 27 Organization Training And Education...... 278 28 Support For Conservation...... 281 29 Sustaininable Rural Development...... 282 30 Tribal Minorities ...... 285 31 Implementing The Strategy...... 287 32 What Can Individuals Do?...... 292 INSTRUCTIONAL SYSTEMS...... 293
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In Wales:-
Overseas students in the University of Wales, too numerous to mention; teachers and advisors of the Dyfed Department of Education
In London:-
H.R.H, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, for his critical and constructive view of environmental education, which led to natural economy. And for his suggestions which sharpened up the teaching model.
Andrew Bennett Overseas Development Administration, and Andrew Bothwell, British Council, for their enthusiasm and efforts to obtain financial support for the project.
In Cambridge:-
Staff of the Cambridge University Examinations Syndicate, and local teachers, for ideas and critical comments; particularly Richard Price, for threshing out classroom objectives.
In Godalming:-
Ivan Hatting, and Peter Martin , Education Department, World Wide Fund for Nature for their cooperation, and Craig Johnson of WWF, for his boundless enthusiasm, ideas, and good companionship in Kathmandu.
In Kathmandu:-
Director, Dr Kedar Shreshtha, Ministry of Education (Curriculum, Textbook, Supervision and Development Centre), for suggesting ways in which natural economy could be of use to developing countries;
Ananda Joshi and Damodar Joshi, National Planning Commission, and Department of Forestry and Plant Research, for their local support, and valuable data.
Staff of Budhanilkantha School, for their memorable hospitality, and help in getting the right Nepalese orientation.
R K Joshi, S. B Shreshtha and H Bajacharya, Research Centre for Innovation and Development, Tribhuvan University, for discussing the relevance of natural economy to their own considerable efforts in cross-curricular innovation, and allowing their materials to be used as exemplars.
Julian Edwards, British Council, for smoothing the Nepalese path, and opening doors.
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In Brussels:-
Staff of Directorate General for Development for orientating the project towards Budget Line 947, and providing financial aid, without which the project would not have reached a successful conclusion.
In the United States
Staff of Glasgow High School, Delaware, for opening up the possibilities of using mesocosms and microcosms as classroom tools for studying the sustainability of ecosystems.
The Marine Sytems Laboratory of the Smithsonian Museum, Washington for offering their know-how on controlled ecologies to schools.
Finally:-
We acknowledge our debt to the ancient principalities of Wales and Suffolk, in which our ideas about 'consumermatics' germinated, first took root, and began to develop.
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SUMMARY
1 ''Systems of Sustainability' (SOS) is a dynamic focus for the integrated study of a group of subjects which deal with the origins and utilisation of natural resources to meet human needs and wants. It is a global knowledge structure designed to stimulate the study of world development and its consequences for communities and ecosystems.
2 The practical aim is to encourage the democratic participation of youth in action plans for sustainable development. This involves learning and thinking about the relationships between consumer economies, and the resources they use, in the context of Agenda 21 and the Biodiversity Convention of the Rio de Janeiro Environment Summit. 'SOS' is an educational response to Rio; a dynamic cross-curricular model of world development, where industrialism and conservation are interrelated features of human social organisation. The modern link between industry and conservation is consumerism. Past links are expressed in social history and political history.
3 A community's use of natural resources is described as its 'natural economy'. Natural economy provides a local focus on natural resource utilisation within the community served by a school. At this local level, natural economy defines the flows of natural resources through the neighbourhood, and encourages thinking about the impact of the choices people make, as consumers and planners, on the quality of life of themselves and others. Natural economy is grouping of interrelated concepts from geology, geography, and biology, which defines the management of natural resources for human production, population growth, and economic well-being.
4 Neighbourhood environmental appraisal is promoted as a methodology for local 'action-education'. The practical goal is to define the relationships between human social organisation and the biophysical resources necessary for sustainable development, which are expressed in the communities surrounding the school. The practical objective of studying the local natural economy is for pupils to make a plan to help their community participate in the Local Agenda 21 planning process. The Local Agenda 21 is the new cross-curricular arena to stimulate the use of the local environment as a resource for 'issue-based' environmental education.
5 Classroom methods have been developed to assess the quality of life in the community served by the school. The resultant database may be used to categorise, spatially and temporally, the major processes of change which produce differentiation, association and organisation of local natural resources. The paramount emphasis is on collecting information to solve real problems that have a local or global social significance.
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6 Methods for collecting and evaluating information are compatible with educational software. These classroom tools encourage reporting on problems, issues and challenges of local development. A report may be assembled on an ideational scaffold, which also forms the knowledge navigation system for the reader. Computers also allow teachers and pupils to produce databases of impacts of development on the local environment which may be used as educational resources by other schools. They also make it easy to express system models dynamically in the form of experiments for self-directed learning about resource-orientated problems.
7 For secondary schools wishing to incorporate SOS into a rigorous examination format, 'natural economy' is available as an examination syllabus in the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate's International General Certificate of Education.
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VERSION 9
From the outset the natural economy project has involved extensive discussions with teachers and educationalists. This is the ninth fully assembled version
D.B. R.D
Dec 1999
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CHAPTER 1
RESOURCES AND PEOPLE: AN EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVE FOR MANAGING CHANGE
In Herman Melville's great classic of the sea "Moby Dick", the mad Captain Ahab drives his ship and his crew to destruction in his satanic effort to conquer the white whale - the symbol of all the powers outside man that would limit or lame him. Toward the end, as his mad purpose approaches its climax, Ahab has a sudden moment of illumination and says to himself: "All my means are sane; my motives and object mad". In some such terms, one may characterise the irrational applications of science and technology today. But we have yet to find our moment of self-confrontation and illumination. (Lewis Mumford, 1956).
1 Environmental Education
1.1 Environmental education is not environmental science. Environmental science explains how the environment works. Environmental education is a process of self- confrontation and illumination pointing to the future battle to save us from our own excesses as consumers. Increasingly, in the lifetime of our children, the conflict will be between the pressure of development on the special places where, as individuals, we feel we belong, and the achievement of sustainable living for the world as a whole. The old Welsh word 'cynefin' defines these places as our special 'patch', a spot that has been singled out, or shaped, by people in the past, and which in turn conditions our present life. Everyone knows their cynefin. It is a place, usually incorporating some features of the local historical and natural heritage, from which we draw the physical, biological, social and spiritual resources necessary for life. It may be the road where we live, or it could be the open space where we take our exercise. We have protective feelings about it, and oppose any developments that would change or destroy its valued features. Environmental education has to be structured around the concept of cynefin as a multi-layered knowledge system to explain how these particular areas that amalgamate environment and people, the human ecological niche, may be protected, and at the same time, utilised, within the mainstream of consumer driven economic development. The main questions environmental education should address are 'How do we use natural resources?" and How do we manage the environmental impact of our uses?". Educational reform has far to go to place these questions at the centre of the curriculum.
1.2 The following comments on the state of environmental education in European schools is based on quotations from: 'Europa' Nos 3 and 4 (1992-3) Centre for European Education, Lisbon 'Naturopa' No 74 (1994) Centre Naturopa, Council of Europe 'Euro-Link' 1994. A newsletter written by Portuguese, Dutch, English and German children who are members of the European Clubs schools network. It covers the period from the early 1970s to the 1990s
1.3 The need for environmental education is defined as follows:
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- Man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality, and adequate conditions of life, in an environment that permits a life of dignity and well-being. UN Conference on the Environment Stockholm 1972
- The problem of the environment is humanity's number one problem, and environmental education must be regarded as a priority. Particular attention should be given here to young people, so that the world's future leaders can learn to manage its affairs better than their elders. Prof Mario Pavan Chairman International Organising Committee European Nature Conservation Year 1995
- The need for a high priority for environmental education has arisen because the environmental debate has shifted from a focus on single environmental issues to a growing realisation that environment and economics, or conservation and development, must be viewed together, if either part of the equation is to be sustainable, and if we are to bequeath to our children, and their children, a healthy and resource- rich environment". Stephen Stirling England
- The need for environmental education at the international level was recognised, and its development requested, through Recommendation 96 of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm 1972. This stated that the Secretary General, the Organisations of the UN, particularly the UNESCO and the other international agencies concerned, should, after consultation and agreement, take the necessary steps to establish an international programme in environmental education. This should be interdisciplinary in approach, in school and out of school, encompassing all levels of education, and directed towards the general public in particular, the ordinary citizen living in rural and urban areas, youth and adult alike. It should educate him to the simple steps he might take, within his own means, to manage and control his environment. United Nations Conference on the Environment Stockholm 1972
1.4 The goals of environmental education are defined as follows:
- to foster clear awareness of, and concern about, economic, social, political, and ecological interdependence, in urban and rural areas; - to provide every person with opportunities to acquire the knowledge, values, attitudes, commitment and skills, needed to protect and improve the environment; - to create new patterns of behaviour of individuals, groups, and society as a whole, towards the environment. UNESCO Conference Tblisi 1977
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1.5 The difficulties of environmental education are defined as follows:
- Teaching today is strongly influenced by (classical) subjects, so by far most of the teaching within a European dimension takes place, and will take place, in subjects. Every increase in knowledge will be incorporated there. Much less will be performed in interdisciplinary teaching.
Nevertheless, the European Dimension itself has a cross-disciplinary character. So the concept asks for a co-ordinated approach across the various subjects in schools curricula, with an impact on teacher training and production of teaching materials. Bernd Janssen Director of the 'Europe at School Co-ordinating Unit' Bonn
- The main difficulties to promoting environmental education in schools are:-
- the strict, rigid teaching methods, focusing on knowledge of facts; - a crowded curriculum; - approaches to learning that are biased towards science, and not age-appropriate; - not enough active learning methods; - too little outside or fieldwork activities; - very limited activities concerned with improving environmental awareness among society; - financial difficulties faced by many schools; - inadequate teaching resources for teachers and students. Slawermir Karwowski Poland
1.6 The way forward for environmental education is defined as follows:
- In the last few years the importance of environmental education for social change appears to have gained new interest. Policy-makers outside the field of environment are starting to realise that real change demands the involvement of the entire community, both individuals and groups. The document 'Caring for the Earth' sums up what it is all about. Values, economies and societies, different from most that prevail today, are needed if we are to care for the Earth and build a better quality of life for all. Peter Bos The Netherlands
- Environmental education should focus on areas of nature conservation, remediation, environmental protection and resource management. In addition, it must place emphasis on political, economic, technical and human aspects of environmental protection, such as ethics, aesthetics, and social issues. This education programme should not look just at theory, but also at how to apply principles, and achieve goals through a problem, and a value orientated, process. Elizabeth Vajadovich Visy Hungary
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- Given the growing environmental imperative, the following criteria were seen to constitute a new responsibility for the education system, that is, the promotion of environmental awareness, and of dynamic qualities in students, such as initiative, independence, commitment and readiness to accept responsibility. Appropriate school initiatives at all attainment levels should include the following dimensions:-
- personal involvement of students and their emotional commitment; - interdisciplinary learning and research; - reflective action to improve environmental conditions; - involvement of students, at least partially, in decision-making or problem-finding, on procedures, and on monitoring their work; - the concept of environment should be broadly defined, not limiting school initiatives to the natural environment, but including social, economic, cultural, and technological dimensions between schools and community, to links with outside institutes. K. Kelly-Laine ENSI (The international Environmental and School Initiatives Project ) OECD
- In 'Caring for the Earth', the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists nine principles for sustainable living. All of them have implications for education, because without a means of helping people to understand their importance, and to live sustainably, the principles will remain ideals. Education is particularly important in enabling people to change personal attitudes, and practice through helping people to re-examine their values, and alter their behaviour (Principle 6), and in enabling communities to care for their own environments (Principle 7), through training, and information dissemination. John Baines IUCN
- I believe the following skills and qualities are essential if we are to educate for sustainability
- self-esteem, confidence, motivation; - co-operation, trust and empathy; - communication skills, including negotiation and decision- making; - an ability for critical thinking, lateral thinking and problem- solving; - self-reliance, an ability to take responsibility for ones own actions; - future thinking; - feelings of belonging to the natural world, and an understanding of our relationship to all life on earth; - creativity, imagination, a spiritual and personal response to the environment; - an ability for reflection and evaluation.
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Geoff Cooper England
1.7 The way forward for environmental education is defined as follows:
- The International Environmental Education Programme (IEEP) has developed the holistic concept of environment (natural and man- made). It has also examined the philosophy, goals and objectives, guiding principles of environmental education, and strategies for their incorporation into the formal and non-formal sectors.
The Programme's major impact in the exchange of information and experience is achieved through its quarterly newsletter 'Connect', published in eight languages, and disseminated to 20,000 institutions and professionals in the world. Similarly the directory of institutions active in environmental education promotes interaction among 1,500 institutions in all regions.
The Programme has emphasised environmental education with investigation and problem-solving approaches as early in schooling as possible. In this context, the use of the environment as a living laboratory is encouraged at all levels of education. This facilitates teaching/learning, and saves funds for classical laboratory set-ups and equipment.
Environmental education, post-Rio, must empower individuals and communities, as called for in Agenda 21, for making informed decisions concerning the environment, and the sustainable development issues that affect them individually, and collectively, at local, national, and international levels.
A major challenge of environmental education is to harmonise the needs and actions of environmental interventions with sustainable development priorities. The objectives of industrial and agricultural sectors for sustainability, and the skill potentialities of the business sector, have to match the needs of a decent life-style in the social sector. Much research is needed for revising current policies and guidelines. to meet the challenges of environmental education in promoting 'learning to be' in the environment which is the only home for the present and future generations of the human family. Dr A Ghafoor Ghaznawi UNESCO
1.8 The European dimension in environmental education is defined as follows:
- The Treaty on European Union which came into force on 1 November 1993 includes two provisions (Articles 126 and 127, Chapter 3) which enlarge the field of community action in the sphere of education and vocational training. The role of the Commission in these fields can be seen as a natural response to the recommendation that 'member states cooperate, exchange information and compare their experience on issues common to their educational systems'
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Learning is most valuable when it relates to our own experience and lifestyles. These learning contexts are the home, community, leisure, school, post-school education, and the workplace. K Sankey Scotland UK
1.9 The practical approaches to environmental education are defined as follows:
German and English in a High School where a European Club was formed three years ago. We try to make students conscious of their roles in the society they belong to. They are grouped according to their interests and their age. They study, they visit institutions, they invite experts to school, they organise exhibitions, they play, they sing, they cook.
Every year a plan is presented, always covering the three areas.
1 The place where they live- The UN convention on the Rights of Children gives all children the right to speak on their own behalf about their concerns. Whether children are concerned about the environment, about their own lack of education, or clean drinking water, about wars between countries, or violence in their own homes, we, the adults, must learn to listen, and to take their experiences, and their ideas seriously. Children are not always right, no more than adults, but they have the right to be heard.
The local process, where the children talk about their own experiences, and the situation in their community, is the basis of the 'Voice of the Children' campaigns. The simplicity is the beauty of it: workshops and hearings can be organised in a local school, in a scout troop, in the city hall, or an international conference. The important thing is that many children are involved, and that they are genuinely concerned about the questions they raise. Adults are facilitators only, not to lead the process. Kristin Eskeland Norway
- Undoubtedly, one of the major missions of the school is to educate European citizens. And that cannot be achieved if the fundamental principles at the root of our society - respect for human rights, for democracy, for difference, tolerance, solidarity etc. are not only taught but experienced by living them.
That is why the European Clubs were set up in Portuguese schools. They are the main instrument to dynamise the programme "European Dimension in Education" designed in 1988/9 to associate actions of the Centre for European Education with those of the Ministry of Education.
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The fundamental aim of this Portuguese programme is educating for Europe, looking forward to Europe in a world context, creating a true' European awareness' in the whole school community.
Special emphasis is given to putting into practice measures envisaged in the Resolutions and Recommendations on European Dimension in Education both from the European Community and the Council of Europe.
The development of the above mentioned programme involves among others, the following procedures. We have to:
• co-ordinate efforts and actions of the government organisations with the non-government organisations with similar objectives; • create a minimum structure in the schools: the European Clubs; • train teachers who will act as multipliers in their respective schools; • produce suitable teaching materials; • mobilise teachers, pupils/students, authorities, parents, local community etc.; • organise and support activities with the same aim of enhancing the European Dimension in education such as 'Europe at School'- European School's Day Competition' which every year reaches thousands of pupils and teachers in Portugal and has a really huge impact.
The European Clubs are centres set up by teachers and pupils, free to plan their own activities designed to enhance the European Dimension in education within the general conception. Margarida Belard National Co-ordinator of the Programme European Dimension in Education. Lisbon
- I teach:
1 Problems, their detection and proposals for solution Social Environmental Economic • Yesterday. Today. And tomorrow? • The school and the community • Ways to active life. • Awareness of their social roles as inhabitants and members of a community
2 The countries of the EC
• Information from Embassies • Invitations to school • Contact with foreign schools in Portugal • National days
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• Relationships with others within the Council of Europe, UN, Lome Convention. • Contacts/debates/workshops with experts and members of Portuguese and European Parliaments. • Exhibition of materials • Reception of colleagues and teachers from abroad.
The democratic institutions
• From the City Hall to the European Institutions • Organisations and Treaties Manuela Martins European Club Escola Secundaria Quelez Portugal
- To exploit the European Dimension we, the teachers, have to produce some changes in our classroom methodology. We also have our European Club. Its a second step, a second living/working space. This club is a centre designed to dynamize activities concerning European Education and our students have joined it either as 'effective members' or friends. There are lots of students and teachers who keep on working on Europe for pleasure. They fulfil several tasks: They collect documentation and update information on the European institutions and countries and after checking information on books, booklets and magazines, they make their own wallcharts, files, crosswords, and journals: they play games on European subjects; they play cards and build puzzles; they organise cultural activities, competitions and exhibitions for the purpose of improving their knowledge of European realities; they watch videos and films on Europe lent by EC institutions and embassies.
We can't imagine a way for the youngsters to while away their leisure time at school better than working in small groups in the European Club.
Our attainment targets have to do with the desire of reinforcing among the young generations a true European spirit. By acting jointly in a spirit of solidarity we want to take part in the building of a high-quality Europe. Margarida Guimaraes Co-ordinator of the European Club of Escola Prepatoria de Caxias Portugal.
- The general objectives of the European Club of Glazed Tiles are:
- to create among their members a truly 'European spirit' to be spread by all possible means among the local community to which they belong and among other pupils, students and teachers in Europe;
- to imbue pupils and young people with a sense of responsibility as European citizens especially with regard to the safeguard of the cultural heritage:
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- promoting exchanges between teachers and pupils by organising exhibitions on My country- the place where I live- Europe (drawings paintings and photographs accompanied by an historical/artistic review. - circulating details in Europe of the history and the techniques of glazed tiles. - setting up a national and international network of European Clubs interested in this subject. - drawing parents and members of the local community to the school by involving them in a highly concrete activity and focusing their attention on the European area and consequently, the interesting problems facing Europe today. Preparatory and Secondary School 'Andre de Resende" Evora Portugal
- My name is Guido di Blasi and I am a foreigner who has spent all his life in Germany. I was born in Bonn and I am going to Agust-Macke- Schule. In my life I've met a lot of German and other foreign children. There have never been any problems about my nationality.
My father is an Italian and my mother was born in Czechoslovakia. I am Italian. It is sad to see that Germany has such a bad reputation concerning the racism. But there is racism all over the world. In my opinion in Germany and especially in Bonn there are many multicultural meetings. At these occasions thousands of people come together and have big parties. Almost a third of these people are foreigners, but all the people get along without any problem. Germany tries to support understanding between Germans and foreigners. Especially in our school -August-Macke-Schule- there are many activities in favour of a better understanding of different cultures e.g. the European Club established by our teacher Mrs Mehle. We have built up also different relationships with other countries at our school. For example, with Namibia (Africa) and Italy. What I want to say is that Germany is a country that does accept foreigners and strangers because it has learned from its history. Guido di Blasi -August-Macke-Schule
- What is Q-Basic?
So I learned the keywords and especially the way to programme by looking at the examples in the books.
I just put the keyword in connected it with others and waited what would happen. Then I tried a lot of other things until I got little programs. I think this is the best way to learn it.
Its important that you are patient because it never works like you want it. You should also have some mathematical knowledge because it is needed from time to time.
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May be that someone got interested in programming now, because it is fun and has a big future. Peter Woiteck (14) Kooperative Gesamtschule Erfurt
- On 9 May 1994 a group of 24 Dutch pupils from Kiemveld school, Den Dungen, joined us for the weekend. Together with our friends from Dynamix we planned a special co-operative day with the emphasis on European partnership. The aims of the day were as follows.
1 to integrate Dutch and English children 2 to experience a valuable process with a visible end result 3 to have a new and exciting experience learning new skills together -Circus-Puppets-Carnival. 4 to make all activities safe.
The teachers also had to co-operate and learn new skills. Mr Korsten had to stand in the middle of the club jugglers and have a pencil knocked out of his mouth by the clubs! Mr Lee had to learn how to walk barefoot across a path of broken glass. I think he was allowed to practice during the lunch time so that when he did it he didn't hurt his feet. Ben, Heidi, James, Tracey, James, and Laura (all 11 years of age) Portishead Primary School Bristol
- We celebrated Europe Day on Monday May 9th. We had a display of paintings and pictures from all our friends in our Eurobus schools.- Northern Ireland, England, Portugal, Cyprus and Finland and from our friends in the Czech Republic. In the afternoon our Mums and Dads came to join in the fun. Our class had a quiz which was so hard no- one got all the answers right! Some children did folk dancing, while the Nursery Class learned 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' in Finnish. In Class 2 the Mums and Dads painted pictures of the children for our art exhibition.
Some of the Mums made Welsh cakes and scones in the staff-room for visitors. Class 3 had passports in their class and everyone had to pass passport control. We listened to music and songs from all the other countries, and we finished off the day with a laugh, watching the teachers do folk dancing! We all had a lovely day and look forward to Europe Day next year. Class 6 Blaengwawr Primary School Wales.
- Our European Club is a place of fun where the students usually meet to learn more about Europe. Each member can choose his/her activity, playing and producing games about Europe, writing leaflets or letters to other European schools, reading and writing stories based on Portuguese tales and legends, painting wall charts, getting information to use on different activities, watching videos, singing and learning how to be European...... And participating in the Euro-Link of course!
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Sometimes our Club receives European visitors and it is very funny to meet other people and speak English or French! And every year we make the arrangements and prepare a great feast to celebrate Europe! Pedro Picarra Jose Maria M Ferreira 6B Club Europeu esc. prep. de Caxais Portugal
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2 The Human Ecological Niche As A Focus Of Education
2.1 Every organism survives by virtue of its niche- the opportunity for expressing its life cycle afforded it by a particular patch of environment. In occupying its niche it changes its surroundings and for further survival it is necessary that its lifestyle should not be a disruptive one. The habitat furnishes the niche, and if any species breaks up the habitat, the niche goes with it.
2.2 The niche of a species is part of a complex biological system. Evolution up to the emergence of human-kind, ensured that biological systems, like non-living ones, tended to approach a condition of minimum stress and maximum balance. Living systems are different from inanimate systems in that they are active and tend to approximate what is known as a 'steady state' rather than a condition in repose. To persist they must be able to utilise radiant energy, directly or indirectly, not merely to perform work, but to maintain the working system in good order. Stable ecosystems contain organisms adjusted to the habitat and to each other. As a group they make the fullest use of the incoming energy and conserve for use and re-use the materials which the system requires to survive. The degree to which a living community meets these conditions is therefore a test of its efficiency and stability. This gives us a criterion of sustainability by which the environmental effects of human development may be judged.
2.3 The changes induced by human industrial development, either by sheer direct destruction, or indirectly, by accelerating or shifting natural processes from their point of balance, produce more serious damage to our human niche, than the so called 'natural changes' for which we are not responsible.
3 Environmental Accounting
3.1 All approaches to the problems produced by human development indicate that we should strive towards a condition of equilibrium with the environment. This is the verdict of ethics, aesthetics, and natural science. Despite the prevalence of the idea of a continually expanding economy it is also the verdict of 'environmental accounting'.
3.2 Accounting seeks to identify assets, liabilities, income and expenditure and to relate them by means of equations. An accountant must be careful to identify those changes in capital known as depreciation and not to confuse them with income. Assuming therefore that the environment represents the basis of our capital assets, does our demand upon it represent sustaining income in excess of what we draw from it, or have our wants been satisfied through deterioration of the capital base, that is through depreciation?
3.3 The very structure of our modern economy is based on mass production. This is geared to the speedy conversion of raw materials, the capital of humankind, into consumer's goods at a rate governed only by the capacity of the public to buy. The
Contents p 21 Edition June 1, 2008 more we buy, the more goods are produced, a recipe for depreciation of our environmental capital.
3.4 Applied to the environment, accounting has to match the supply of each limited landscape resource with demand by the mechanism of price, irrespective of currency. Resources are very largely created by price. If a material becomes scarce then its raised price will either make extraction from poorer quality sources an economic proposition, or will stimulate the search for a substitute. The discovery, invention, and production of substitutes all involve the development of appropriate science and technology. In the context of monetary economics, this behaviour has led to industrialisation and the massive localisation of production systems that were formerly small-scale and widespread in the rural environment.
3.5 Assuming therefore that the physical and biological environment represents the basis of our capital, do our demands upon it yield an income in excess of expenditure or have our gains been obtained through the deterioration of the capital base ? This question can be, and usually is, argued on a global scale where irreversible environmental deterioration is clearly a net deficit resulting from recent agricultural development of the forests of the Far East, Africa and South America. However, most of us live and work, and test our values within a much smaller compass of a 30 minute bus, train or car journey. It is on this small scale, within a social rather than a wilderness landscape, that people find the need of environmental benefits from open skies, grass, and trees. When these are denied us we feel a disquiet which is at the base of contemporary environmentalism. Very few of us can understand the scientific principles of habitat preservation. But, stripped of its experts and their concern with protecting 'natural habitats', 'wildernesses' and 'rare species', conservation really deals with our heart-felt need to retain certain ecological elements of our intensively used industrialised landscapes so that they give us the maximum benefits indefinitely.
3.6 'Conventional economics' is not always suitable for regulating these human resource wants where price cannot be equated with value. All methods used to fix prices fail when land has a scenic, religious or historical value. However, there can be little doubt that today, the practice of conventional economics largely governs the relations between man and nature, world-wide. Environmental education has therefore to deal with issues of world poverty, not only in relation to the biological and physical resources of landscape, but also through local resources of human labour, which express its social structure. Local economics cannot be set apart from sociology and ethics, and the analysis of interactions of people with the environment requires a broad methodology with a comparative, ethnological viewpoint.
3.7 To conclude, it is increasingly evident that our children need a broad perspective of environmental education which connects the daily life of peoples with the local and global environmental impact of their lifestyles. This perspective should focus upon the technologies required to support particular social conditions. It should also deal with the 'ecological economics' of managing self-renewable resources to sustain the character of family and household life, the conditions of labour, and of leisure. The provision of this panorama requires cross-curricular connections to be made between the sciences. The subject matter should be arranged so that connections may be made with the humanities, particularly history. This will emphasise the links between social conditions and the political events which grow out of them. From this point of
Contents p 22 Edition June 1, 2008 view technological driven industrialism will be seen to have a bearing on economic history and political history, through the medium of social history.
4 Our Role in Changing the Face of the Earth
4.1 The effect of people upon vegetation before the origin of agriculture and pastoral life is unknown. The simplest of these early folk survived because they had discovered routes of systematic wandering among the sites of natural production, gathering what they used; even their dwellings were temporary, and there was no such thing as a cultivated field, no specialised manufacturing plant, or a particular place where a service was offered. Their techniques were simple, their life precarious, their numbers small, and they left hardly a footprint, a whisper, or a fading shadow, in the forests where they moved.
4.2 Early hunting cultures are known to have killed Pleistocene mammals, for example the mammoth and the bison. Mammoths, horses, and camels evidently became extinct in the Americas after people arrived there. Also, the incidence of fires must certainly have increased above the pre-human level.
4.3 Certain weeds multiply when the natural plant cover is destroyed and show up in pre-human pollen profiles following volcanic activity or erosion due to earth movements. Similarly, early human influences on vegetation registers in many pollen profiles because of the abrupt appearance of weeds, classed as composites, amaranths and chenopods. The chenopods are still used for food and may be regarded as pre- agricultural crops. Of special interest is the recent evidence of their appearance during the second interglacial period in association with artefacts of Pre-Acheulean human societies.
4.4 Agriculture requires the removal of native vegetation while pastoral life is sustained by such vegetation. The practice of felling and burning trees and planting cleared ground until the yields decline, then abandoning it and moving on was once widespread. It is not particularly harmful until the increasing pressure of population extends the system to the hills and shortens the cycle needed for the vegetation and soil to recuperate. Erosion then follows.
4.5 Similarly so long as a pastoral economy has sufficient space to permit nomadic life, the grasses and other herbs which sustain this way of life can recuperate between periods of heavy use. One cannot doubt that primitive herders knew good pasture when they saw it, and took vigorous measures to prevent undue trespassing and excessive use. Under heavy use the floral composition of pastoral grasslands is modified, and less nutritious species come in as weeds. If the grazing pressure continues, particularly in hilly land, soil erosion by wind and water ensues.
4.6 Starting with the impact of agricultural and pastoral economies, land use problems have become more acute and dramatic. Now, residence, business, industry, transport, waste disposal, military needs, recreation, leisure- all have intensified their rival claims, frequently on the same limited area.
Fig 1 Network of impacts of human development
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4.7 All human societies, from their beginnings, have to be part of a stream of water which enters the human group in a clean condition and leaves it dirty. Now, our cities are almost wholly dependent upon water which falls on rural land. The technological culture of cities creates a rising demand for water at the same time that its industrial production processes accelerate the return of water to the sea. The atmosphere has also become a medium of transport and a sink for waste products. The seas are a global sink and are dying ecologically through over-fishing. This network of impacts (Fig 1) is the starting point for environmental education. It is also a dynamic menu for planning the future use of our planet, utilising its soils, its mineral resources, its water, and its flows of energies in sustainable ways.
5 Consumermatics The General Model
5.1 'Consumermatics' is a subject which traces the flows of materials and energy into human production systems. The background knowledge is based on three natural systems which support human production through the availability of natural resources, the 'planetary economy', the 'solar economy', and the 'symbiotic economy'.
5.2 'Natural Economy' deals with the diverse human production systems based on these three major economies, and the environmental management that is necessary to manage flows of materials and energy to maintain local natural resources, in symbiosis with people. Economy is defined as the orderly, and interdependent interplay between living things and their surroundings, and as the careful management of environmental resources to avoid unnecessary destruction, and ensure a continuous supply.
5.3 As a cross-curricular educational theme, 'consumermatics' is more circumscribed and cohesive than environmental studies in that it deals with clear-cut patterns of behaviour necessary to preserve the environment as a self-sustaining resource base. It draws on the knowledge and methodologies of history, geology, geography, archaeology, anthropology, biology and economics to present the physical and biological processes that we have to understand in order to define our place in nature. As a stimulus for project work in the local environment, it encourages children to become personally involved with the managerial compromises necessary to keep it
Contents p 24 Edition June 1, 2008 functioning productively, to match our increase in numbers with the demands for space and a dignified life-style.
Fig 2 Primary model of the environment
5.4 Any educational model of an environment is an expression of its natural economy. Natural economy defines the flows of materials and energy from a stock of natural resources into the production systems of the socio-economic organisation of households and communities. The latter draw 'environmental goods' from a renewable stock of natural materials to develop the following classes of productive installations (Fig 2).
5.5 Natural resource sites are the places of occurrence of materials that are turned into goods. There are two kinds of natural resource sites; 'extraction sites' are places where materials are removed as the first stage in a production process; 'nature sites' are places which people visit to use living and non-living materials for leisure, recreation, or education. Manufacturing sites are places where natural resources are transformed into goods. Cultivated lands are places where plants and animals are grown for human use. Service centres are places where services associated with the production of goods are provided by one individual for another. Circulation routes define the path the resources have to follow from extraction sites, cultivated lands, and manufacturing sites in the course of production and delivery of goods to consumers. They also define the routes used by people to visit nature sites.
5.6 These five classes of productive installations, 'natural resource sites', 'manufacturing sites', 'cultivated lands', 'service centres' and 'circulation routes' are the primary windows of environmental education. In every human neighbourhood, they
Contents p 25 Edition June 1, 2008 each reveal at least one problem, issue or challenge to manage natural resources for sustainable development. It is these individual impacts of local productive installations that signal a point of focus for one or more of four layers of knowledge which define the particular cynefin that is under threat.
5.7 These knowledge layers of environmental education may be defined as follows:-
- layer 1; policies on sustainability and their implementation through integrated resource management of government agencies, and the legal requirements of business to protect the environment.
Increasingly, our uses of natural resources will be related to the outcomes of the Rio Global Environment Conference, as summarised in Agenda 21, and the Convention on Biodiversity. Environmental education should integrate the Rio resolutions, through the study of local action plans of environmental management agencies and businesses, within the mainstream of education;
- layer 2; the socio-economic systems by which local communities may be empowered to have ownership of local resources, and express their collective choice for achieving sustainability;
- layer 3; knowledge about the flows of natural resources through human production systems to meet the needs of families and their aspirations;
- layer 4; specialised knowledge about the planetary, solar and biological economies which provide our natural resources .
5.8 Unfortunately, environmental education almost always begins and ends with the fourth layer of knowledge. In the context of the British national curriculum, this means that we prepare children for the 'review' rather than the forthcoming 'battle'. Too much time is taken dealing with proposals for exercising control over nature without reference to the kind of control we must exercise over ourselves to cultivate an 'ecological conscience'.
6 Importance Of An Historical Perspective
6.1 The following reference focuses the need for a subject dealing with industrialisation in relation to ecology and economics.
"If we do not accurately recall how the countryside came to be as it is, and how its system of land ownership was developed; if we are not clear as to the historical reasons why we hold the countryside in symbolic opposition to town, industry and capitalism; if we forget the men and women whose work made our countryside and whose poverty brought about a type of community we look back to with envy; if we do not acknowledge that the countryside's alleged richness is only a measure of the towns deprivation; we will accomplish nothing and will merely fall back into nostalgia or forward into utopian day-dreaming. Without a strong grasp on history and a proper understanding of agriculture's
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capacity for damage as well as productivity, we will never build a bridge across alienation and claim for ourselves the countryside I have tried to identify here."
6.2 This is the theme of the penultimate chapter in Fraser Harrison's book 'Strange Land', in which Britain's unthinking acceptance of an industrial system for the production and slaughter of farm animals is used as a multi-faceted metaphor to focus on the alienation of Britons from the real environment. He argues that now the final stage of industrialisation has revolutionised global agriculture we are all strangers in a strange land.
6.3 Now that agriculture has become industrialised there is no place on earth which retains the complex biophysical wildernesses which were the lodestones of the 19th century European explorers. This has produced a spate of packaged, nostalgic, imagery from TV producers and authors of 'countryside books', advertisers and marketers. The reality of living in the country is distorted to provide a comfortable alternative to the failed urban dream. This dream of a better life, sent the grandparents of modern Europeans in droves to the Victorian cities, but is now failing to meet the aspirations of the urbanised rich and poor alike throughout the world. Further, by treating animals as industrial commodities they become living symbols of our suppressed animality and general alienation from the biological cycles of which we are, and will remain, an integral part.
6.4 Education's neglect of modern agriculture is a reflection of the ways in which educationalists generally distance themselves from the process of industrialisation which actually brought their narrow specialisms into the European universities. Profits from industry promote a global education that ignores its origins and cannot help us to appreciate and solve social problems arising from the ever increasing demand for the cheap goods and services that can only be produced by industrial methods. A new compact grouping of knowledge across the boundaries of traditional geography, biology and economics is necessary, not only to get the understanding that Harrison demands, but also to obtain benefits of the intellectual reclamation of our day to day working environments.
6.5 Another element of modern environmental issues is that we assess our benefits from contact with the countryside on non-commercial scales of psychological well- being and aesthetics. No matter how these modern wants originated in the minds of long-dead aristocratic landowners, and are bound up with myths of a golden age and childhood innocence, they have to be reconciled with the demand for cheap commodities. Human, nutritional wants have produced the profit-sensitive conveyor- belt production programme of the modern farmer, who in half a lifetime has industrialised and dehumanised age-old village production systems, and thereby destroyed the 18th century pastoral scenery upon which the current landscape wants of Europeans are based. That is why environmental management is now an interdisciplinary balancing act. Society has to make financial decisions, on the one hand, to accept that farmers have to repay the massive bank loans that support industrialised agriculture, and on the other, to conserve 'uneconomic' agricultural systems which satisfy the sense of well-being we obtain through contact with the 'right' kind of environment.
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6.6 This is not only a problem of the developed world. At the root of Fraser Harrison's book, and many others on the same theme, is an important historical shift in our attitude towards the global environment. We have lost the widespread confidence of our ancestors that with human resourcefulness we can draw indefinitely upon the environment to meet our expanding needs. The knowledge we require for the future has to be concerned with the replacement of a long-standing exploitation philosophy with a quest for economic compromises which re-equilibrates us with our surroundings.
6.7 The need for this new approach is the verdict of all ways of approaching environmental problems; from aesthetics, agriculture, ecology, ethics, and industry. And, despite the prevailing idea of a continually expanding economy, it is now also the verdict of accounting.
7 Agrarianism and World Development
7.1 The subsistence base of complex farming societies was normally some kind of intensive agriculture. A variety of techniques was used, including irrigation, terracing, the use of ox-drawn ploughs, the development of new plant and animal breeds and the diversification of crops. These developments provided the greater yields needed to support the larger populations. They may also be closely related to developments in social organisation: the so-called 'hydraulic hypothesis', as we have seen, argues that the practice of irrigation requires some kind of centralised management. It is also possible that increasing specialisation in the subsistence economy could have led to increasingly centralised administration, since a central management would be needed to organise the pooling and redistribution of the various products.
7.2 Considerable advances in technology occurred in the period between the appearance of the first farming societies and the emergence of civilisation, and not only in the subsistence field.
7.3 In the Old World bronze metallurgy was developed; the wheel was invented and used both for transport and for throwing pottery; wind power was harnessed by sailing boats and animal power was used for a variety of purposes including ploughing and transport; a very wide range of materials was exploited for tools, weapons and ornaments. In the New World we do not find all these inventions: wheels were not used, and metallurgy was practised only in parts of South America and in the Post- Classic period in Mesoamerica.
7.4 None the less, some technology in pre-civilised societies in the New World reached very high levels of complexity and skill: ceramics, obsidian and jade working fall into this category. In all areas the quality of some of the goods and the complexity of the technology involved suggests that there were full-time specialist craftsmen. The development of technology undoubtedly contributed to the increasing division of labour in society. It may also have contributed to increasing social differentiation, for it made available a range of fine quality luxury items, suitable for use as status- enhancing goods in a prestige good system.
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7.5 Exchange now took place on a vastly increased scale. Materials used for prestige goods, such as precious metals, gemstones and other highly prized rocks, were traded over great distances. Lapis lazuli, for example, which appears to come from a single source in northern Afghanistan, was traded over the entire Middle East to Sumer, Egypt and the Indus from the fourth millennium BC. Intra-regional trade is also well documented, linking communities within an ecological region such as a river valley. A Mesoamerican example of this is provided by the trade in miniature iron-ore mirrors made at San Jose Mogote in the Valley of Oaxaca, which formed part of an elite exchange network linking Oaxaca with San Lorenzo and the Gulf Coast in the second millennium BC. More locally still, it seems as though the spread of objects and materials throughout an area was ensured through the mechanism of redistribution from a centre. This change is related to developments within the sphere of social organisation.
7.6 Very important changes had occurred in the organisation of society. In terms of individual status, society was now clearly divided vertically: at the top a small group of 'haves' was separated from a large body of 'have-nots', or at least 'have-littles'. What the 'haves' had was certainly wealth and high status and probably also authority, and it is possible that all three were hereditary. On the other hand, what they probably did not have was exclusive access to vital resources: it seems likely that the producers themselves still owned the land and controlled production.
7.7 The degree of centralised organisation had also increased considerably in these more complex societies. Whereas early farming societies were characterised in the main by patterns of independent and equivalent communities dispersed through the landscape, the settlements of the later more complex farming societies show a markedly different pattern such a central storage place. Here sites serving as 'central places', larger than the norm and usually displaying special features in architecture or artefacts, or both, are surrounded by other sites that are smaller and less rich in architectural and other remains. The 'central-place' sites often have large ceremonial buildings, evidence of manufacturing activities and a wide selection of imported goods; they clearly served as administrative, economic and religious centres for their local regions.
7.8 Explanations as to why did these complex farming societies evolved range over the same gamut of theories as do explanations of the origin of farming itself, concentrating on the same key areas: the environment and the subsistence economy; population increase; the role of trade; and changes in social organisation. Increasingly, however, many scholars have come to favour multi-causal explanations involving several interacting factors. Such explanations are often placed into a systems framework - a view of human culture as a system with sub-systems such as economy, technology, social organisation, and so on. Change is seen as coming initially from outside the system, for example through environmental change or contact with other areas. However, such external factors only bring about major changes in the system if more than one sub-system is affected and if different subsystems interact to exaggerate the change rather than to minimise it. This approach has been applied to the emergence of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilisations, and by others to Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica.
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8 Life In Complex Farming Societies
8.1 If we turn again to the records of anthropologists in a search for enlightenment about these ancient communities, we find that the most comparable societies are those described by some anthropologists as chiefdoms. Chiefdoms are intermediate in complexity between segmentary egalitarian tribes (the simple farming societies that we have already discussed) and centralised stratified states. They are characterised by the presence of centres to co-ordinate economic, social and religious activities. In the economic sphere we find specialisation in production, with different communities or sections of communities concentrating on particular aspects of farming, hunting or fishing. Associated with this is the concentration of the different products in the controlling centre, whence they are subsequently redistributed: this kind of economic organisation is described as redistributional.
8.2 A striking feature of the social structure of chiefdoms is the pervasive inequality of both persons and groups. At the apex of the social pyramid is the chief himself; his position is hereditary, usually according to the rule of primogeniture. In the rest of society people are ranked according to their genealogical proximity to the chief. The chief is surrounded by a whole series of rules and taboos which serve both to set him apart from everyone else and to sanctify or otherwise legitimise him. Hawaiian chiefs, for example, have exclusive rights to wooden bowls decorated with the teeth of their enemies, while Maori chiefs have to eat and sleep separately from everyone else - they even have to be separated from the earth lest their power seep into it inopportunely.
8.3 Chiefdoms also exhibit a higher population density than that found in tribes, and this is associated with greater productivity in the subsistence economy.
8.4 The civilisation of ancient Egypt stands unique in the body of world history. It was created by people who harnessed the natural resources of the Nile valley to channel its dependable flows of materials and energy into a stable agrarian society. This society flourished mainly through seasonal systems of husbandry and village processing which underpinned the wayward lives of its dynastic rulers.
8.5 History is dominated by slender evidence that fuels our fascination for noble families, their intrigues, and conquests. Museums celebrate the lives of the Egyptian pharaohs by promoting their monumental and artistic creations. However, these are but social transformations of the ephemeral, year by year produce of village fields. For Egypt, more than for any other civilisation, we can redress the balance between dynastic and social history by drawing upon an abundance of material evidence about the lives of the common people, and how they processed the fruits of their labour. This is the subject matter of natural economy, an area of interdisciplinary knowledge about the systems by which people manage local natural resources for goods and trade. It deals with dynamic processes by which a society rationalises its dependence on natural resources and invents technologies and institutions for their sustained utilisation and marketing.
8.6 The Museum of Ancient Agriculture in Cairo has an unrivalled collection of organic objects representing the biological resource base of rural life of pharaonic times. These artefacts, be it a sack of grain, a dried fish, a plate of croissants, a side
Contents p 30 Edition June 1, 2008 of beef, a role of air-thin linen, all tell stories about the domestication of the unique solar economy of the River Nile. Artefacts of this kind are not common outside Egypt, partly because of their fragility, but also because the early collectors concentrated on objects in stone and metal. They are vivid illustrations that Egypt was created and has flourished through the efforts of its farmers from ancient times. Their technological inventions, agricultural improvements, and physical energy have affected Egypt's economy, prosperity and mode of life. Yet many of the basic techniques for the sustained cropping of arid lands invented 6,000 years ago remain virtually unchanged.
9 Conceptual Plan of An Agricultural Fiefdom
9.1 The following conceptual plan follows the convention that many socioecological processes which involve flows of materials, energy, goods, people, and information can be best dealt with using a systems format.
9.2 Most of our evidence about the socio-economic organisation of the ancient Egyptians derives from their elaborate religious ceremonies depicted in temple and tomb. Unfortunately, the key to the complex religious symbolism resided with the living priesthood. Having lost this oral tradition we are left with an Egyptian world view expressed in unintelligible symbols. Our quest for understanding must inevitably begin with the most consistent symbolisms which are those of the procession, the festival, and the rites of temple and funeral. A central feature of these ceremonies throughout the long period of Egyptian history is the offering of village produce to the gods. The ancient Egyptians not only depicted the offerings but also detailed the various processes by which they were produced.
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A widely accepted interpretation of this convention was put succinctly by Alexandre Moret in his analysis of the symbolism of wall decorations:
'All around, servants bring provisions of food, clothing and the necessary furniture; the making and origin of each offering is used as the theme for the decoration. Thus, to explain the offering of a leg of beef, they show animals feeding in the pasture, the mounting of the cow, the birth of the calf and scenes of agricultural life up to the slaughter of the animal; the offering of bread made it necessary to have scenes of tilling, harvesting and baking; the offering of wine was the excuse to show vineyards and grape-gathering; offerings of furred and feathered game and of fish made it necessary to show scenes of hunting in the desert and of fishing by line or net. Each of the objects of the funerary furniture - shrine, coffin, bed, vessels, clothing, arms or jewels - gave rise to descriptions of the methods of manufacture of these objects; thus, we can see, plying their trades, carpenters, foundry-men, armourers, weavers and jewellers. Even the purchase of provisions in the market and the drawing up of household accounts are used as decorative subjects. The soul and the body of the deceased relived perpetually the sculpted scenes: the act depicted became a reality, each picture of a being or an object recaptured, for a moment, its ka and came to life according to the wish of the god who lived in the tomb . . .'
9.3 This complex social production system is encapsulated in the phrase "Let us work for the Noble" which is part of Part of an inscription in the tomb of ‘Paheri’, an Egyptian Mayor of the 18th Dynasty, which describes agricultural management in the fields of his villages. This system is presented diagrammatically in Fig 3 as a sphere of ‘worldly abundance’ linked to a sphere of ‘celestial abundance’ via a sphere of ‘offerings’ organised by palace and temple.
Fig 3 An world model of Ancient Egypt
A dynamic systems view of this model ( Fig 4) defines the flow of offerings as a channel of mediation between people and gods to realise mankind’s divine potential. The system represents a constant processing of natural resources through society to ensure life after death in an eternal agrarian paradise. This organic flow also guaranteed divine feedback to maintain an abundant natural economy in mankind's transient earthly life through the unfailing daily circuit of the sun.
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Fig 4 Human and divine flows of natural resources and spiritual 'energy' through Egyptian society
9.4 The artefacts, which for the most part come from temples or tombs, cannot be considered in isolation from this model. However, at the level of the daily lives of farmers, craftsmen and traders they may be simply taken as illustrations of the systems and processes by which biological resources enter a local natural economy. This prosaic viewpoint defines two major themes for the travelling exhibition as ‘systems for organic production’ and ‘methods of organic processing’. This mode of structuring the exhibits makes it possible to draw comparisons with other agrarian societies, both ancient and modern. The concepts representing the first level of knowledge for each of these themes are presented in Figs 5 and 6.
Fig 5 “Systems for organic production” 1st level concepts
9.5 These diagrams are only collections of concepts arranged at random and do not represent the layout of museum space. They represent first level non-structured windows into a knowledge system. The beginnings of a levels’ approach to this
Contents p 33 Edition June 1, 2008 system is presented in Table 1 in which some of the 1st level concepts are opened up to provide a second level menu.
Fig 6 “Methods of organic processing” 1st level concepts
9.6 In this educational model the learning experience involves moving from an object to the concept it illustrates, and then to a more detailed consideration of the object in its various temporal dimensions. This is summarised in Fig 7 where the object is positioned in a plane defined by research. From this position it has a place in history, a place in a sequence of development or invention, and a role as a functional element in a system or process.
Fig 7 The multidimensional context of each artefact which is specified in terms of its place in history, its place in research, its place in a sequence of development, and its place in a system or process.
9. 7 This brief discussion opens up problems of information delivery posed by the individuality of the learning path of an average museum visitor. Even where the
Contents p 34 Edition June 1, 2008 display is structured to narrow the line of enquiry, a particular object may, independently of the curators vision, trigger a desire for more knowledge about it in any of its various dimensions. A cased object with a conventional paper information system, consisting of labels and a summary booklet, is limited in not being able to offer the necessary lateral connections. A computer managed database integrated with a conceptual knowledge system would be an obvious advantage. It could offer a relatively cheap graphic/text printout for each object as a potential takeaway, and also cope, via a gallery screen interface, with the idiosyncratic demand for information to assemble a personal body of knowledge.
Table 1 Natural economy of ancient Egypt: 1st and 2nd level concepts
Systems for production Methods of processing
•Calendar •Plants •Domestication Crop processing •Irrigation Medicines •Cultivation Flowers •Transport Wood crafts •Plant production Cosmetics Field Building units Grains Fibre crafts Flax Clothing Papyrus Traps/ nets/ snares Gums •Animals Fruits Footware Vegetables Butchery Palm wood Dairy products Carob beans Leather crafts •Animal production •Food processing Water Beverages Fish Cereal foods Wild fowl Bread Shellfish Honey Desert Oils Game Wines and beers Stall and yard Preserves Donkeys •Animals in religion and domestic life Beef cattle Cows Sheep Goats Domestic fowl
10 Birth of Consumer Societies
10.1 Ancient society did not see 'the economy' as something separate. Even by the fourth century BC there existed no concepts for handling 'economics'. The economy was not perceived explicitly, and was still embedded in other state institutions, such
Contents p 35 Edition June 1, 2008 as group relationships governed by honour and obligation. When the change to commercialism came, it was very gradual, fluctuating and (possibly until very recently) incomplete. Practices for redistributing wealth, and ways of thinking about personal service and obligations persisted alongside the market economy. .
10.2 It is against such conceptual difficulties, and in the context of a transitional stage between the two systems, that the philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) attempted at various points in his Ethics and Politics to comment upon economic issues. He clearly reflects his upper class status and his period, when he says that supplying necessary goods or practising a useful craft is something that the good citizen does for the benefit of the community: for honour and status, and never purely for personal gain. In Aristotle's Athens, such services were performed by Athenian citizens, assisted in most cases by their numerous slaves. Aristotle did not criticise this arrangement or the institution of slavery.
10.3 Trade for profit was tolerated on the fringe, carried on for the most part by 'metics' (a class of semi-resident aliens) and 'foreigners' . A similar resistance to participation in 'trade' on the part of Victorian gentry, together with the concept of the 'tradesman's entrance', forms a reasonable parallel. The idea that the price of goods could be so 'marked up' that gains could accumulate into the kind of wealth that would enable an individual to join the landed class, would probably have been anathema to Aristotle. There existed no really separate merchant middle class with social aspirations.
10,4 There was, however, a marked change from the Hellenistic period (third century BC) onwards, with the formation of a Greek merchant middle class. Ironically enough, it is now the elite Romans who despise them, as we can see in the satirist Juvenal's contempt for the 'lying Greek'.
10.5 Clearly significant in the rise of commercialism is the advent of coinage, probably in the late seventh century BC. At least two centuries were to elapse before 'small change' was available in Athens; it was well into late Hellenistic and early Imperial times before the individual had anything like a range of 'shops' and 'bars' at which to spend his coins. It was perhaps only in Imperial Rome that a truly cheap coinage became freely available.
10.6 While some kind of trader's stall probably has a much greater antiquity, on permanent shop sites even Imperial Rome was to remain ambivalent. Consider, for example, the 'shopping precinct' and 'arcades' of the emperor Trajan's Market. The Market is situated next to Trajan's Forum. It is, however, the Forum that has pride of position and treatment, with its extravagant use of space and its peristyle. The Market is relegated to a difficult hill site nearby.
10.7 Changes in the concept of property and ownership are also connected to the rise of commercialism. Most pervasive, were changes in systems of land tenure. The key concept is that of inalienable ownership. Whereas typically redistributive societies employ status and obligation to regulate land use, with 'lease' being provisional and on behalf of the group or state, the market economy operates on the principles of inalienable property, price and contract. Earlier societies placed a clear ban on the notion of profit from basic transactions, such as those in staple foods. In the 'free'
Contents p 36 Edition June 1, 2008 market, however, everything - including people, services, and food supplies - can be bought up. To quote Juvenal again, omnia sunt Romae venalia: 'everything at Rome can be bought and sold'.
10.8 One important aspect of the market economy - and a reason perhaps why its original advent and its subsequent development have seen many troubled stages - is its essential amorality. The earlier state societies with their redistributive economies had certain principles built-in. These principles involved obligation and reciprocal ties, which by definition were moral. Antiquity soon recognised, however, that the new unbridled freedom of the 'free' market brought large problems into state management. The greater and more conscious range of choice enjoyed by the individual was also two-sided, since one man's free enterprise was another's exploitation.
10.9 In the event, intervention and the renewed use of redistributive and 'administered' structures were practised, and by some remarkable agencies. Ptolemaic Egypt, for instance, in spite of the cosmopolitan nature, say, of Alexandria, kept a strict state control on the movement of goods such as beer, oil, metals, spices, perfumes, salt and textiles. Quality was monitored, and hefty customs imposed. In Imperial Rome the emperor Hadrian rescued certain craft trades from extinction, while Diocletian introduced a programme of 'consumerism' legislation to moderate abuses.
10.10 The societies that immediately preceded the emergence of full civilisation show significant changes from the simple farming communities that we have just discussed. They were much larger, with signs of strong central organisation in the form of substantial public buildings and sometimes defences. Social differentiation was marked too; this is demonstrated most clearly in burials, which often show some very rich graves contrasting with others that are much more poorly equipped. Technology was more advanced, and some goods were almost certainly made by full- time specialists. Far-ranging trade networks brought in a wide variety of materials and goods. In the subsistence economy new plants and animals had been domesticated and more intensive methods of agricultural production were being used. Clearly, in the interval between the first appearance of farming and the development of civilisation, an interval that varied in length from area to area but usually lasted several thousand years, important changes had occurred. As these changes may well be critical to our understanding of the emergence of civilisation, we shall look at them more closely.
10.11 An increase in population is one of the most visible characteristics, archaeologically speaking, of the period that followed the development of farming. This is marked in the archaeological record both by increasing numbers of sites and by an increase in the size of individual settlements. We have data for the Deh Luran plain of south-west Iran, where a detailed survey was carried out by the American archaeologists Frank Hole and Kent Flannery. Their calculations indicate that the population density for the first farmers was 2.3 people per km2, but that some 2,000 years later it had more than doubled to between 5 and 6 people per km2. The Deh Luran plain is semi-arid and not very fertile, and figures of 10 people per km2 or even higher have been suggested for developed farming communities in other areas, such as southern Mesopotamia.
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11 Industrialism and World Development
11.1 As outlined in the previous section, from both an international and a parochial point of view, a new educational framework is required to orientate people towards an appreciation of the environment as the modern font and focus of all knowledge. It also has to present a wide, integrative view of the economic order of nature in relation to the provision of resources for human development. The natural economy of the 17th and 18th centuries gained its knowledge through analytical topography. However, as knowledge about the developing European environment accumulated, it was increasingly delivered into expanding academic educational compartments such as geology, and zoology. Natural economy lost its relationship to the human economy and became much more narrowly defined as a subject dealing with unspoiled nature, defined as nature's economy, and eventually re-emerged at the end of the 19th century as the academic, non-applied subject of ecology. Humanity has now entered an era where we must return to the broad base of 'natural economy' which, in its original definition was both font and focus of knowledge emanating from a wide range of subjects embracing anthropology to zoology.
11.2 Modern natural economy as defined in this manual adheres closely to the original interdisciplinary subject matter, defining the ways in which we now treat most of the planet as a resource. As a theme, based on a well-defined set of principles governing the relationship of people to nature, it stands in relation to environmental management as physics does to engineering.
11.3 Because of our many competing global demands on natural resources, the theme of natural economy should be introduced into schools because all knowledge has to be related to a world view where human well-being is seen to be limited by the Earth's natural economic order. This depends on the "landscape capital" of rocks, soils, water, air and the interdependent communities of animals, plants and microbes. In schools this balance between physical and biological capital produces the ecological segregation of landscape expressed nationally as the country's biogeographic zones, and locally as a particular pattern of land use and settlement around the school. National and local perceptions have to be related to a world view where human well-being is seen to be limited by the Earth's natural economic order and planners have to deal with many competing global demands on natural resources. In this sense the theme of natural economy can also be an attitude, and a cause to sustain human development, in that it sets out to systematise knowledge that is necessary to balance human numbers with nature, in dignity and harmony.
11.4 We have now become the dominant species on the planet, and the dominant force for change. By comparison, the earth before mankind changed infinitely slowly. Now, governments and local communities increasingly have to plan within the natural economics of competitive resource utilisation in order first to gain, and then to maintain prosperity by setting a dynamic balance of land use. On the credit side is prosperity; in the debit column of the global account is the decline of wildlife communities, unclean rivers, unstable climates, and the loss of human well-being through the creation of industrialised agricultural systems. Whether it is envisaged as a cross-curricular theme or a complete subject, natural economy deals with the maintenance of the dynamic equilibrium of
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global accountancy and encompasses a global model of industrialisation as outlined in Figs 8 and 9
Fig. 8 Natural economy or 'the social use of nature': general model
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Fig. 9 Natural economy: detailed model
12 Bringing Industrialism Into Education
12.1 The economising techniques of industrialism are intensive research, financial capital, sources of cheap power, invention of machines for specialised jobs, education and training among the working population, and construction of infrastructure for circulation. These techniques produce the typical features of the modern commercial world. The cultural map is dominated by the urban places where most of the population lives. Facilities of manufacture, service, and communication are concentrated in cities. Within the countries where producer-economies are fully established, rural dwellers partake of most of the same living conditions as city folk. The landscape of a regional natural economy is defined by a network of circulation routes into which are fed raw materials from specialised sites of farming, forestry, mineral extraction, and fishing. The cities tend to be nearly alike; the landscapes of local natural economies differ in appearance because of specialisation. A steady
Contents p 41 Edition June 1, 2008 circulation also connects the metropolitan commercial countries with overseas outposts in which productive enterprises and cities become members of the same system. All commercial countries and their outposts are bound by the routes of circulation of natural resources into one world.
12.2 The natural economy of industrialism defines the incorporation of more different natural substances into an artificial complex than are found under any other technical system. Likewise, much greater quantities of raw materials are extracted by industrial production systems than under any other economic order. The diversity of the means of production is unparalleled. The volume of inanimate power supply is incomparable. The intensity of circulation is unlike any known before, and the degree of linkage of interests and activities among places and peoples spatially distant from one another is unprecedented.
12.3 The modern inhabitant of a commercial country does not make his world; he buys it. The material circumstances of his life are not the outcome of his individual encounter with the natural order, but arise out of his relations with the social order.
12.4 The commercial form of organisation and the artificial habitats developed under it, tend to override differences of person and of place. They are anonymous and world-wide. Virtually all of the human environment has become so modified that it represents a special and very peculiar set of living conditions. It is still nature, but nature tamed. In particular, the microclimates under which individuals actually live are closely regulated by artificial means within the buildings and vehicles where they spend most of their lives.
12.5 Industrialism provides food, water they drink and air through technical devices. The continuous and heavy circulation of goods, persons and ideas nourishes the settlements and maintains their people. This artificial environment, created and sustained by the efforts of the whole society is the new harvesting ground of consumers. Family groups stalk through its shopping malls and supermarkets gathering manufactured and transported products as the gatherer bands use to prowl the forest in quest of natural products. Modern consumers are utterly dependent on an abstract exchange system. The wealth or poverty of nature in the immediate surroundings, and the rhythm of the seasons, are indifferent to their modes of consumption. Feeding on commodified food, packaged and imported from the four corners of the world, the natural controls on human life, while still in effect, are equalised and regularised over time and space.
12.6 Industrialism has established a new order of relationships between the earth and man. Whatever natural site or substance can be of use, no matter where it is located, becomes potentially subject to exploitation by whoever can use it. Whatever wants consumers anywhere experience, or can be encouraged to develop, evoke further production and resource use. Improved technical means allow a higher rate of resource extraction. Specialised industries develop very particular requirements for certain materials in great quantities. More favourable artificial environments favour rapid growth of population and rising standards of consumption. This way of life, and this peculiar artificial material world we live in are remarkably unlike any other system that man has produced. But they are so familiar that one must adopt a very detached point of view to see all of their peculiarity.
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12.7 According to this model, modern natural economy defines the system involved in our 'social use' of nature through industrialisation. Expressed as a general model for world development, it represents people drawing living and non-living resources from the material environment according to the process of consumerism, which is driven by peoples wants. These wants are generated within our social environment by education in its broadest context, and are transmitted globally through sophisticated information networks of the media.
13 Controls On Industrialism
13.1 People's wants, expressed as 'commodified' foods, goods, services and armaments, are produced as cheaply as possible by industrialisation, which is activated by a combination of science and monetary capital. Up to a point, human development increases the richness of the landscape, but above a certain population density, and beyond a certain scale of industrial development, the environment is 'used up' and its riches decrease. Since the products of industry, including food produced by ranch-type industrial husbandry, change society by increasing peoples horizons for more products, industrialisation uses up the environment ever more rapidly. The resultant self-augmenting cycle is an example of positive feedback, which is the most difficult kind of system to control.
13.2 Control of industrialisation has to be exerted through our perceptions of the environment, which are set by moral values (religion), and culture (political philosophy and associated legislation). Regulatory inputs at one extreme come from the application of collective interest and responsibility (socialism with a small 's'). This is the 'brake" which encourages a balanced or positive use of the environment. At the other extreme are the corporate and individual interests of capitalism). This is the "accelerator" which encourages destructive, or negative use of the environment.
13.3 If we are to stabilise the natural economy, the year to year stability and riches of regional and local environments first have to be evaluated. These measured states have then to be compared with desired norms of stability, richness and availability (climate, soil fertility, wildlife diversity, state of industrial resources, and aesthetic quality). Any departures from desirable standards of stability, richness and availability have to be corrected by a change in our attitude towards development. This correction involves the application of collective interest and responsibility through the social environment so that less is taken from the material environment, and fewer harmful substances are put into it, whilst maintaining a high tempo of wealth creation.
13.4 Social mechanisms to control the use of the environment are education, to generate an ecological conscience; legislation, taxation, and commodity pricing, to discourage negative use of the environment; and the subsidisation of unprofitable use of the environment, to encourage positive management for wildlife and landscape aesthetics. The latter are global riches that cannot be equated directly with monetary economics. All these controls delineate the vital negative feedback component to social regulation from the state of the environment, which is represented by the dashed line in the diagrams (Figs 8 and 9).
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13.5 Four important characteristics of the natural economy of a modern developing natural economy are that it should be :-
- self-reliant, with an orientation to supply material and spiritual needs from within the community's local environment; - participatory, with feedback channels from social peaks to social bases; - promote trade biased towards the use of self-renewing natural resources, - wants largely satisfied by exports from communities with similar community systems.
14 Educational Advantages
14.1 The development of natural economy as a schools syllabus began early in 1987 in response to an initiative from The Duke of Edinburgh who, as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, suggested that the University Examinations Syndicate, should create a new school syllabus dealing with environment and economics. Professor Bellamy of the University of Wales formulated the philosophy of the subject in consultation with Prince Philip and the Syndicate's staff. The subject was then passed on to teachers and examiners to develop as an examinable syllabus.
14.2 During the early discussions, the need for natural economy to be taught in schools was accepted by European and North American educationalists who subscribe to the international schools network. Discussions with third world educationalists have produced the same positive response. As a syllabus, natural economy is being introduced to schools by the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate as part of their new International General Certificate of Education for children in the 15 to 16 year old age group. It is intended that it should be the 'hub' of the wheel of traditional subjects which all have some relationship to it.
14.3 As outlined in this manual, natural economy is not presented as a syllabus but as a cross-curricular theme suitable for studying the interdisciplinary aspects of world development at primary and advanced level. As a distinct body of knowledge it is also capable of being separated into largely self-contained modules for extending traditional syllabuses. It adheres closely to the original 18th century interdisciplinary subject matter, but placed in a global context to define the ways in which we now treat most of the planet as a resource. This resource-orientated attitude to environment is presented through the analysis of the range of basic human behaviours by which we change the face of the earth.
14.4 Because of its interdisciplinary subject matter, natural economy is difficult to teach and must have rigid guidelines, through integral global and national models of development presented as courseware, to which local teacher-produced material can be related.
14.5 The prerequisite requirements are knowledge of the planetary environment driven by solar energy, which governs the interrelationships between living things and the environment, and the interdependence of all matter. This background knowledge is separated into three areas of 'the planetary economy', 'the solar economy', and 'the
Contents p 44 Edition June 1, 2008 animate economy', which, together, defined the materials and energy economy of ecosystems. The animate economy, defines the resource-seeking behaviours, and their corresponding technologies, which lock the human race, along with all living things, into these three economies of nature. It takes the viewpoint that the human economy is a part of nature in terms of every kind of human activity, from felling a tree to painting a house.
14.6 Whether introduced as a cross-curricular theme, or a subject syllabus, natural economy should encourage pupils to gain first-hand experience, through project work in the local environment, of the environmental compromises we have increasingly to make to accommodate the needs of different groups and organisations. Natural economy must be studied, wherever possible, in a practical mode, with an emphasis on environmental management. In the project section of their course, using the methodology of, 'analytical topography', children will find that the best area of local or regional compromise is found where the most that is good is preserved.
14.7 This local practical experience, which clearly provides opportunities for teachers to develop their own local curricula and teaching materials, should be set against a global perspective based on international case histories of important environmental issues, with game simulations being used wherever possible to generate empathy with the dilemmas of human decision makers. Personal computers offer ways of organising appropriate interdisciplinary data-files for curriculum development around local environmental issues. By using local information in relation to the global data- file it will be seen that people never respond to 'the environment' in its usual academic sense, but to their 'cultural concept of the local environment'. By making comparisons with the global data-file of other countries and cultures it will be seen that unless there is a common concept of environment there cannot be sustainable human co- operation. In this sense it is important to present the farmer's and industrialist's viewpoints alongside that of the environmentalist.
14.8 The overall aim of applying the theme of natural economy across the curriculum is to demonstrate that what children as future adults propose to do with the Earth, utilising its soils, its mineral resources, its water, its flows of energy, depends upon knowledge of the ways in which its resources are utilised competitively by plants animals and people. With an awareness of this knowledge, human behaviour is capable of imagining a whole new pattern of relations. This could bring future generations to a different destination. where no more is taken from our planet than nature and people can generate, co-operatively, on a short-time scale.
14.9 Involvement in the production of local case histories should also help children to become caring citizens, through stressing the need to ensure that compromise and relevance are features of local development programmes. In this respect, it can be argued that aid programmes have often failed, not through lack of funds, appropriate knowledge, and technical training, but because they were implemented against an unsympathetic local viewpoint.
15 The Rio Environment Summit
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15.1 The Earth Summit, held in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, was the largest meeting of world leaders ever. Together, these leaders created a document called AGENDA 21, a blueprint for saving Planet Earth.
15.2 The Rio Summit was the product of global environmental worries which began in 1972. That's when 70 governments met in Stockholm for a conference which created the United Nations Environment Programme or UNEP. UNEP's main job was pushing governments to take more care of the environment. It also hooked up with UNESCO to push environmental education. In 1984, it helped to publish the World Conservation Strategy-a forerunner to Agenda 21. It didn't go into the question of development- the need to balance protecting the environment with people's need for food. So the United Nations appointed a world commission on environment and development, which produced the famous report called "Our Common Future", which set out the idea of sustainable development. This means: Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Get it?- feed the world today but leave a planet around for your great grandchildren.
15.3 In 1989, the UN decided to hold a conference on environment and development. Brazil offered to host it in Rio. For 2 years, governments, NGOs and experts thrashed out a document that 179 states could agree to. Agenda 21 was the result! Its not a fixed law: no one's going to be punished if they don't do what it says. But the fact that all those governments did agree to it make it very important.
15.4 The following statements summarise the message of specific chapters of agenda 21 which the action group thought were particularly important for immediate action
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY The priority must be to maintain and improve the capacity of agricultural lands to support an expanding population: Agenda 21 Chapter 14
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY Governments must get greater energy efficiency out of existing power stations, and develop new, renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, hydro, ocean and human power: Agenda 21 Chapter 9
ANTI-POVERTY PROGRAMMES The main aim of anti-poverty programmes is to make poor people better able to earn a living in a sustainable way: Agenda 21 Chapter 3
BIODIVERSITY Biological resources feed and clothe us, provide us with housing, medicines and nourishment. The loss of biodiversity continues at a faster rate as a result of human activity: Agenda 21 Chapter 15
CITIES A growing number of cities are showing symptoms of the global environment and development crisis, ranging from air pollution to homeless street dwellers: Agenda 21 Chapter 7
DESERTIFICATION
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The results of drought and desertification include poverty and starvation. About three million people died in the mid-1980s because of drought in Africa south of the Sahara.
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FOREST DESTRUCTION Forests world-wide are now threatened by uncontrolled exploitation by human beings. They are being turned into farms or destroyed for timber and other uses: Agenda 21 Chapter 11
FORESTS AND CULTURE Forests need to be preserved for their social and spiritual values, including the traditional habitats of indigenous people, forest dwellers and local communities: Agenda 21 Chapter 11
FRESHWATER RESOURCES All social and economic activity relies heavily on fresh water. Water is becoming scarce in many countries. The management of water resources is of paramount importance in the 1990s and beyond: Agenda 21 Chapter 18
HEALTH Human health depends on a healthy environment, clean water supply, sanitary waste disposal, adequate shelter and a good supply of healthy food: Agenda 21 Chapter 6
HEALTH AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Sound development is not possible without a healthy population, but the lack of development makes many health problems far worse. The overall goal is "Health for All by the Year 2000": Agenda 21 Chapter 6
HOMELESS PEOPLE Governments should see that the homeless get access to land, credit, and low-cost building materials: Agenda 21 Chapter 7
HUMAN CONSUMPTION The major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production, particularly in the industrialised countries: Agenda 21 Chapter 4
HUMAN POPULATION: CARRYING CAPACITY Countries need to know their national population carrying capacity- how many people their countries can hold without bursting: Agenda 21 Chapter 5
HUMAN POPULATION: RESOURCES The world's growing population and unsustainable consumption patterns are putting increasing stress on air, land, and energy resources: Agenda 21 Chapter 5
LAND There's only so much land in our world. Expanding human requirements are increasing pressures on it, creating competition and conflicts: Agenda 21 Chapter 12
OCEANS: DAMAGE Oceans are under increasing stress from pollution, over fishing and general degradation. It affects everything from the climate to coral reefs: Agenda 21 Chapter 17
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OCEANS: POLLUTION CONTROL Nations must commit themselves to control and reduce the pollution of the marine environment and maintain its life support capacity: Agenda 21 Chapter 17
OZONE Our atmosphere is under increasing pressure from greenhouse gases which threaten to change the climate and holes in the ozone layer which cause cancers in humans and animals: Agenda 21, Chapter 9
POVERTY CAUSES The root causes of poverty are hunger, illiteracy, inadequate medical care, unemployment and population pressures: Agenda 21 Chapter 3
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION Fundamental to the achievement of sustainable development is broad public participation by all major social groups: Agenda 21 Chapters 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30 & 32.
RESPONSIBILITY FOR IMPLEMENTATION Agenda 21 reflects a global consensus at the highest level. Its successful implementation is first and foremost the responsibility of governments... Agenda 21 Preamble
ROLE OF CHILDREN: POLICIES Each country should include children's concerns in all relevant policies for environment and development and support their development in the United Nations: Agenda 21 Chapter 25
ROLE OF CHILDREN IN GOVERNMENT Each country should provide children with opportunity to present their views on government decisions: Agenda 21 Chapter 25
ROLE OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES Local authorities, at the level of government closest to people, have a vital role in educating and mobilising the public to get behind the goals of Agenda 21: Agenda 21 Chapter 28
ROLE OF SCIENTISTS Scientists and technologists have special responsibilities to search for knowledge and to help protect the biosphere: Agenda 21 Chapters 31, 34, & 35
RURAL POVERTY Poverty is a major factor in soil degradation. We need to restore fragile lands and find new jobs for farmers thrown out of work... Agenda 21 Chapter 12
SOIL EROSION Mountain ecosystems are suffering from soil erosion, landslides and the rapid loss of animals and plant life: Agenda 21 Chapter 13
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TRADE Developing nations need free trade and access to markets, in order to achieve the economic growth that will enable them to grow in a sustainable way: Agenda 21 Chapter 33
UNITED NATION'S ROLE The United Nations is uniquely placed to help governments achieve the objectives of Agenda 21. The UN itself should rebuild and revitalise itself around these goals: Agenda 21 Chapters 37 & 38
WAR Warfare is inherently destructive of sustainable development, so effective laws, respected by all states are needed: Rio Declaration Principle 24
WASTE MANAGEMENT Prevent or minimise the generation of waste. This should be part of an overall cleaner production approach; by 2010, all countries should have national plans for waste management: Agenda 21 Chapters 20 & 22
WASTE Unsustainable consumption, particularly in industrialised nations, is increasing the amount and variety of wastes. Quantities could increase four to five-fold by the year 2025: Agenda 21 Chapters 20, 21 & 22
WATER IN THE HOME By the year 2000, all city people should be provided with 40 litres of safe drinking water daily. By the year 2025, there should be safe water and sanitation for all: Agenda 21 Chapter 18
WEALTH AND CARRYING CAPACITY We've got to develop new concepts of wealth and prosperity which are more in harmony with the Earth's carrying capacity: Agenda 21 Chapter 4
16 Important Action Points Of Agenda 21
1 Promote energy efficiency standards
2 Tax industries in ways that encourage the use of clean, safe technologies
3 Improve substitutes for CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances.
4 Get all these technologies transferred to poor countries!
5 Deal with acid rain that floats across frontiers by having regular exchanges of information, training experts and applying international standards of pollution control
6 Increase knowledge of mountain and desert ecosystems by having a world information centre and identify areas most at risk from floods, soil erosion etc.
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7 Give farmers environmental education
8 Prevent desertification by not polluting soil, by using land soundly and by planting trees that retain water and soil quality
9 Pass laws to protect endangered areas
10 Make plans to ensure that potential drought victims survive
11 Plant new forests
12 Practical knowledge on the state of forests is needed; planners often lack even basic information on size and types of trees in forests.
13 Further research is needed into forest products like wood, fruits, nuts, dyes, medicines, gums etc.
14 Replant damaged areas of woodland
15 Breed trees that are more resistant to environmental pressures
16 Local business people should be encouraged to set up small forest enterprises.
17 Limit and aim to stop slash-and-burn farming methods
18 Keep wood waste to a minimum. Find ways of using trees that have been burnt or thrown out
19 Increase tree planting- in towns and cities
20 Protect and check environmental damage to coastal areas nationally and internationally
21 Polluters should pay for the damage they cause. Those using cleaner methods should be rewarded
22 Protect marine life by controlling what materials may be removed from ships at sea and by banning removal of hazardous waste
23 Nations should share new technologies
24 Set limit on how many fish may be caught
25 Encourage fishing by skilled local people
26 Stop fishing for species at risk until they are back up to their normal numbers
27 Ban destructive fishing practices - dynamiting, poisoning and others; develop new practices to replace them
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28 Prepare sustainable development plans for small island states
29 Support the island's indigenous culture
30 Set up high-level policy-making bodies to cooperate with Non-Governmental groups to put these plans into effect
31 Create a world information resource for biodiversity
32 Protect biodiversity! This should be a part of all government plans on environment and development
33 Offer indigenous peoples the chance to contribute to biodiversity conservation
34 Make sure that poor countries share equally in the commercial exploitation of their products and experience
35 Protect and repair damaged habitats; conserve endangered species
36 Assess every big project- dams, roads etc.- for its environmental impact
37 Eliminate guinea-worm disease, polio, river blindness and leprosy completely
38 Reduce and control tuberculosis and measles, and cut childhood deaths due to diarrhoea by 50 to 70%
39 Protect mothers. Provide them with the means to choose the number and spacing of their babies; allow them to breast feed their babies for the first four months of life
40 Immunise all children; protect them from sexual and workplace exploitation
41 Use effective traditional knowledge in national health care systems
42 All nations to identify environmental health hazards and take steps to reduce them
43 Co-ordinate national efforts to control the spread of the HIV "Aids" virus
44 Put anti-malaria programmes in place everywhere malaria is still a problem
45 Establish standards for industrial hygiene, use of pesticides, maximum permitted safe noise and exposure levels to ultraviolet radiation
46 Protect vulnerable groups, particularly the elderly and disabled population
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47 Reduce consumption; use less energy
48 Eco-label less harmful products
49 Make eco-friendly products cheaper by taxing eco-harmful ones
50 Tax industry that pollutes or spoils limited nature resources; support eco-friendly industry
51 Develop sources of renewable energy
52 Help developing countries in building their economies based on utilising renewable sources of energy
53 Reduce waste, recycle and tax packaging materials
54 Require that industry in developed countries adopt cleaner production methods and promote the transfer of low waste production methods to developing countries
55 Give the people the right to know the risks of chemicals they are exposed to
56 Immediately clean up contaminated areas and give help to their inhabitants
57 Make polluters pay clean up costs
58 Ensure that the military disposes of their hazardous waste properly
59 Ban illegal export of hazardous waste to countries not equipped to deal with it
60 Minimise creation of radioactive waste
61 Bring together everyone who works on the land for planning meetings; local farmers, women, managers, business people, local officials, sales agents, scientists, government officials.
62 Make laws to end the devastation of land by mining (polluter pays principle)
63 Governments must provide advice to farmers on environmentally friendly fertilisers
64 All farmers must be educated in methods of preserving topsoil
65 Encourage farmers to switch to renewable energy sources
66 Tell farmers about the problem of ultraviolet rays reaching their crops; research ways to minimise the effects of loss of the ozone layer and global warming
57 Raise people's awareness through education and campaigns
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68 Develop National Agenda 21s to make sure that new laws aren't just good for the economy but for people and the environment as well
69 Provide technical support to countries who can't enforce environmental laws
70 Tax products that aren't ecologically friendly so that people will buy those products that don't harm the environment
71 Introduce environmental accounting; governments and businesses must stop thinking of natural resources as free sources of profit. For example, they must include the cost of re-growing a forest in the 'cost' side of their accounts
72 Have more women decision makers, planners, scientists!
73 Set up education programmes so all women can learn to read and write
74 Make sure women in developing countries have rights to own land and get credit from banks
75 Make women aware of the environmental consequences of what they buy through eco-labelling, especially in rich countries
76 Help set up child care so more women can go to work
77 Do everything possible to stop violence against women
78 Get close communication between governments and NGOs
79 Co-operation between governments and NGOs themselves should be increased
80 UN agencies should support NGOs
81 Freedom for NGOs to say things and promote ideas that governments and industry might not like must be guaranteed
82 Workers should take part in all decisions, co-operating with both employers and governments
83 Trade unions should promote worker education and training in work health and safety
84 Environmental management should be given a lot of importance and national business councils should be set up for that purpose
85 Measures should be taken to reduce the industry's impact on the environment and develop cleaner production methods
86 Let indigenous peoples take an active part in all political decisions affecting them and their land
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87 Respect and protect the property and culture of indigenous people
88 Give more responsibility to farmers
89 Develop farming practices and technologies that are safe for the environment
100 Farmers should share knowledge on conservation of natural resources
101 Bring ecology into agricultural training
102 Prices of agricultural products need to reflect environmental costs
103 Local governments should draw up their own agenda 21s to reshape the policies, laws and regulations of their districts
104 Local governments should work with international organisations and with each other to gain new ideas.
105 By 1994 local governments should be linked at an international level
106 By 1996 each local authority must present their local Agenda 21
107 There is a need:-
- For the world to help low and middle income developing countries to deal with the problem of foreign debt - For higher levels of foreign investment - For the transfer of clean and efficient technologies - For free trade and access to markets so as to achieve economic growth
108 Funds could be raised by reallocating resources now committed to the military
109 Make basic education available to as many people as possible
110 Set up training programmes on sustainable development
111 Promote awareness on environment, and make use of media and the entertainment industry
112 Promote the knowledge of indigenous people
113 Create partnerships with companies in the developing countries to teach environmental management.
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16 Systems of Sustainability
16. 1 Towards a Global Democracy of Children
The Earth Summit, held in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, was the largest meeting of world leaders ever convened to consider how to cope with environmental issues that threaten the very existence of our planet. Together, these leaders created a document called Agenda 21; a blueprint for saving Planet Earth. Under the auspices of the United Nations, a group of young people then came together, to discuss its meaning for children. With contributions from nearly a hundred countries, this group produced a book, Rescue Mission Planet Earth, which, as a 'children's version' of the Agenda 21, was published in 1992.
The book inspired some teachers, and their advisors, in the Welsh county of Dyfed to create 'SCAN', the Schools in Communities Agenda 21 Network. SCAN works within the British National Curriculum, using its practical targets to get children involved democratically in local environmental issues, problems and challenges. Working from within the schools, using their neighbourhood as an outdoor classroom, SCAN fulfills two aims of Rescue Mission; to connect young people to local government through actions for environmental improvements; and to talk across regional and national boundaries about their work, and their hopes for the future.
This is how the editorial team of Rescue Mission expressed their hopes for 'a global democracy of children'.
"As we edited this book we thought of the thousands of kids who have worked on it who'd like to be here with us now. We've read their summaries, seen their pictures, and they've inspired us. We'd like kids everywhere to become a part of this Rescue Mission, to get access to leaders with their ideas and concerns. It cannot just be an elite. There's only one way to do this in a fair way: to build a Global Democracy of Children.
How?! How on earth could 2.5 billion human beings under the age of 18 be connected in a way that would be democratic? How could we enter in the adults' decision making process without starting to be as boring as them?
The first thing to do is to select issues not representatives. That way we can all choose what we want to talk about, after which the question of who does the talking is less important. The first place to organise is in our schools. Each Rescue Mission will start with a conference where we would decide the issues and elect a small action council to see things get done. Like the children's councils in France, we will have regular access to local government and work with them, perhaps to organise the Local Agenda 21.
With experience at the local level. we'll be ready to ask for access to state governments. Representatives from all local councils in our state, region or province will take priority issues decided by local conferences and discuss them at a state conference, again, electing a council to see that things get done.
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This council would work with state governments to make sure things get done..
The final goal is to move on to national continental and international levels- a step-ladder- so that the things that concern you and me can be carried to the highest levels of power. This is the kind of structure we need to make the Rescue Mission work.
Information Network
The key to it all is keeping in touch with each other. This is hard to do with the language differences, distances, phone bills etc. The solution is to set up a series of Youth Centres around the world, run by young people from different countries. Their job would be to help set up and promote the Action Councils and to keep in touch with each other. The Rescue Mission will be promoted chiefly through the many existing eco-groups, scouts, guides etc. The Youth Centres will simply promote and network their work and success around the world.
Children and governments in the rich world must help pay for centres to be set up in developing countries. Young people from rich and poor countries will work together to make each centre like a youth United Nations- a place where anybody can get the information they want on global problems. It would also be a place where local young people can meet, hang out and chat. Working there for 6 months to a year should be an option to replace National Service.
Al Gore sees the Rescue Mission as a way of collecting eco-information. Many of us do that already and it would be good to network that information globally. But this structure could do other things, especially help developing countries. If Mr Gore is serious about partnership, we hope that he will sit down and hear our ideas as well.
Target Milestones
1995 - Pilot local offices in every region
1998- National meetings in every country
2000 Complete global democracy of youth.
We've found that being together working on this book makes us feel incredibly powerful. We all dread going home- being alone again. That's why we are determined to stay in touch with the way we feel now. Just knowing that there are people like us, concerned about the same things on the other side of the world helps. If you feel the same, get connected" Together, we will be unstoppable".
Editors of Rescue Mission Planet Earth A children's edition of Agenda 21 Peace Child International /Kingfisher Books 1994
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The timetable of Rescue Mission for a network of youth councils has slipped, largely because of the difficulties of maintaining groups of activists in the shifting population of young people.
The idea of children being involved in global monitoring envisaged by Al Gore, now the US Vice President, has emerged as the international Globe Programme, which has the aim of encouraging children throughout the world to measure aspects of their local environment, and report on their results over the Internet
SCAN is a local success because it has focused on Rescue Mission's view that things should start in schools, define local issues, and express their actions and concerns through the Local Agenda 21. Now, through the rapidly growing e-mail capabilities of schools, this 'education to a local purpose' will give life to their vision of a 'global democracy of children'.
At a practical level, there has been much thought, in national and local government, about how to devise indicators to check progress towards the Rio vision of planetary sustainability. This could also delineate routes by which young people could participate as citizens. Whilst appreciating the desires of young people to 'do it all themselves', there is much to be said for them using existing local school/community interfaces, and school to school e-mail networking, to establish action networks, such as SCAN. Practical actions express a basic principle, that appraisals of the condition of an environment involves checking out 'indicators of sustainability'. A key document in this respect is the report of the U.S. President's Council on Sustainable Development. 'Sustainable America: A new Consensus for Prosperity, Opportunity, and a Healthy Environment for the Future', published in 1996. However, from the Rescue Mission point of view, indicators of environmental conditions have practical value only if they are seen as part of systems of sustainability, which delineate the connections between social processes, in which people can participate, and actual mechanisms designed to shift the systems towards desirable goals.
An important advantage in taking a systems approach to environmental management within schools is that involvement does not require the creation of new curricula. The Agenda 21 itself provides the framework, and a platform, to turn what teachers already do into projects to help their communities. To make it functional, routes and exemplars are needed to connect attainment targets of existing subjects to practical actions within systems of sustainability, where the effort can be seen to make a difference. Also, in contrast to proxy involvement through a council, every pupil can participate directly. 'Systems for Sustainability' documents such a framework, and a platform, being developed by SCAN teachers. They used 'Sustainable America', and the report of the 'Balaton Group' (Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development) produced during a workshop at Bilthoven, Netherlands 1996, to define a global systems approach to Agenda 21, which can also be used as a template, and menu, to stimulate, and guide, involvement with their Local Agenda 21.
SCAN is now seeking partners to create practical exemplars of these systems to demonstrate how school/community projects can engage with local and global systems for sustainability to make a difference.
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16.2 Goals, States of Environment & Indicators
There are many perceptions of the environment as a source of various kinds of goods:
- a place to live and work; - a recreational/holiday venue; - a character-image expressing a striking local combination of landform, landuse and vegetation; - a habitat to study.
Our requirements range from a source of wealth, to a rare species for contemplation .
The more goods we draw from our bank of natural resources, the more we demand. This system of consumer demand for manufactured goods has driven world development from the beginnings of our cultural evolution. In order to turn society around, and move towards a closed-system, we have to decide what states of environment are favourable. Then, using indicators of these favourable states, set goals for managing our environmental demands, and inputs, to reach, and maintain, these states in a favourable condition.
Plans for sustainable development have to be expressed as management interventions which counteract the complex, ever-growing, resource depletion of consumerism. The Agenda 21 focuses these plans on 12 goals: 'ecological prosperity'; 'health'; 'equity'; 'biodiversity'; 'land'; 'natural resouces'; 'community resources'; 'civic involvement'; 'population'; 'international aid'; 'education', and 'sprituality'. These goals refer to 50 environmental, or cultural states of sustainability, each of which may be measured by one or more indicators. The goals, states, and their indicators, are listed below.
Goal 1 To Promote Ecological Prosperity
1 State of Environmental Accounting
Development and use of new economic measures or satellite accounts that reflect resource depletion and environmental costs, and which are used to set conditions for the following increases in economic prosperity;
Indicator 1.1.1 economic Performance measured by per capita GDP and NDP;
Indicator 1.1.2 productivity measured by per capita production per hour worked.
Goal 2 To Spread Good Health 2 State of Clean Air:
Indicator 2.2.1 number of people living in areas that fail to meet air quality standards.
3 State of Clean Water:
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Indicator 2.3.1 number of people whose drinking water fails to meet national safe drinking water standards.
4 State of Toxic Exposures:
Indicator 2.4.1 releases that contribute to human exposure to toxic materials.
5 State of Diseases and Mortality:
Indicator 2.5.1 disease and deaths from environmental exposures, including occupationally related illnesses.
Goal 3 To Promote Equity
6 State of Employment Equity:
Indicator 3.6.1 number, wage level, and quality of jobs (as measured, for example, by the % of jobs at or below the minimum wage).
7 State of Income Equity:
Indicator 3.7.1 per capita savings and investment rates;
Indicator 3.7.2 average income of the bottom 20% compared with that of the top 20% of the US population.
8 State of Environmental Equity:
Indicator 3.8.1 number of people living on income support;
Indicator 3.8.2 stock of methods for measuring disproportionate environmental burdens (such as exposure to air, water, and toxic pollution) borne by different economic and social groups.
9 State of Social Equity:
Indicator 3.9.1 stock of methods for measuring access to critical services (such as education, health care, and community services);
Indicator 3.9.2 opportunities to participate in decision-making by different economic and social groups, such as % of these populations attending college.
Goal 4 To Conserve Biodiversity
10 State of Ecosystems:
Indicator 4.10.1 stock of management and monitoring systems for maintaining ecosystems in a favorable condition, including forests, grasslands, wetlands, surface waters, and coastal lands;
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Indicator 4.10.2 number of acres of wetlands, forests, grassland, wetlands, surface waters and coastal lands in a favourable condition.
11 State of Threatened and Endangered Species:
Indicator 4.11.1 number of threatened and endangered species.
12 State of Nutrients and Toxics:
Indicator 4.12.1 releases that contribute to the exposure of natural systems to toxics and excess nutrients.
13 State of Exotic Species:
Indicator 4.13.1 management and monitoring systems to control the introduction and spread of exotic species.
14 State of Global Environmental Change:
Indicator 4.14.1 emissions of greenhouse gases and of compounds that damage the ozone layer.
Goal 5 To Conserve Land
15 State of Stewardship:
Indicator 5.15.1 sterile, or threatened land associated with productivity loss due to erosion and chemical or biological changes in natural systems and other lands, such as agricultural lands;
Indicator 5.15.2 land under protected status.
16 State of Urbanisation:
Indicator 5.16.1 urban land;
Indicator 5.16.2 land used for waste disposal.
Goal 6 To Conserve Natural Resources
17 State of Materials Consumption:
Indicator 6.17.1 amounts of energy and resources saved by source reduction, reuse, recovery, recycling and increased efficiency of materials use, such as materials intensity measured per capita or per unit of output.
18 State of Use of Renewable Resources:
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Indicator 6.18.1 size of harvest or use compared to amounts regenerated in fisheries, forests, soils, and groundwater.
Goal 7 To Support Community Wellbeing
19 State of Community Economic Viability:
Indicator 7.19.1 per capita income and employment in urban, suburban, and rural communities.
20 State of Safe Neighborhoods:
Indicator 7.20.1 number of crimes.
21 State of Public Parks:
Indicator 7.21.1 amount, per capita, of urban green space, park space, and recreational areas.
22 State of Investment in Future Generations:
Indicator 7.22.1 amount of public and private resources dedicated to children, including health care, maternal care, childhood development, and education and training.
23 State of Transportation Patterns:
Indicator 7.23.1 traffic congestion, and use of public and alternative transportation systems.
24 State of Community Access to Information:
Indicator 7.24.1 library use and the % of schools and libraries with access to the Internet and National information Infrastructure.
25 State of Shelter:
Indicator 7.25.1 number of homeless people, by community.
26 State of Metropolitan Income Patterns:
Indicator 7.26.1 per capita incomes in urban areas and their suburbs.
27 State of Infant Mortality:
Indicator 7.27.1 infant mortality rates by economic and social group.
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Goal 8 To Encourage Civic Involvement
28 State of Participation:
Indicator 8.28.1 percentage of eligible voters who cast ballots in national, state and local elections.
Indicator 8.28.2 citizen engagement and public trust, such as the willingness of people in a community to cooperate for their mutual benefit.
Indicator 8.28.3 community participation in such civic activities as professional and service organizations, parent-teacher associations, sporting leagues, and volunteer work.
Indicator 8.28.4 civic collaborations, such as public-private partnerships, community-based planning and goal-setting projects, and consensus-building efforts.
Goal 9 To Define Practical Approaches to Issues of Population
29 State of Population Growth : Indicator 9.29.1 population size and its distribution.
30 State of Women's Status:
Indicator 9.30.1 educational opportunity for women, increased income equality for equivalent work.
31 State of Unintended Pregnancies:
Indicator 9.31.1 number of unintended pregnancies.
32 State of Teen Pregnancies:
Indicator 9.32.1 number of teenage pregnancies.
33 State of Immigration:
Indicator 9.33.1 number of illegal immigrants.
Goal 10 To Give International Aid
34 State of Assistance in Sustainable Development:
Indicator 10.34.1 sources and amounts of international assistance for sustainable development, including official development assistance (government money dedicated to international aid for developing nations).
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35 State of Environmental Assistance:
Indicator 10.35.1 national contribution to the Global Environmental Facility and other environmentally targeted development aid.
36 State of Progress Towards Sustainability:
Indicator 10.36.1 stock of measures for assessing progress towards sustainable development in countries receiving assistance.
37 State of Environmental Technology Exports:
Indicator 10.37.1 exports or transfers of cost-effective and environmentally sound technologies to developing countries.
38 State of Research Leadership:
Indicator 10.38.1 number of research programmes on global environmental problems.
Goal 11 To Promote Education For Sustainability
39 State of Information Access:
Indicator 11.39.1 number of communities with infrastructure in place that allows easy access to government information, public and private research and community right-to-know documents.
40 State of 'Education for sustainability':
Indicator 11.40.1 number of curricula, materials, and training opportunities that teach the principles of sustainable development.
41 State of National Standards:
Indicator 11.41.1 number of education systems that have adopted standards for learning about sustainable development;
Indicator 11.42.2 number of schools that have long-term strategies for 'education for sustainability'.
42 State of Community Participation:
Indicator 11.42.1 number of school systems and communities with programs for life-long learning through both formal and non-formal learning institutions.
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43 State of National Educational Achievement:
Indicator 11.43.1 skill performance of students as measured by standardized achievement tests.
44 State of Higher Education:
Indicator 11.44.1 secondary school 'graduation rates' and number of students going to college or vocational training.
Goal 12 To Build Spiritual Value Systems Into Economic Life
45 State of Local Totem Species
Indicator 12.45.1 Population of whatever local creatures people love.
46 State of personal fulfilment
Indicator 12.46.1 Percent of an individual's lifetime spent in meaningful, fulfilling activities;
Indicator 12.46.2 Average number of minutes spent daily in meditation of any kind
Indicator 12.46.3 Time spent with other age groups.
47 State of community fulfilment
Indicator 12.47.1 Contentedness of those in the community
Indicator 12.47.2 Human openess in streets and squares.
Indicator 12.47.2 Time spent with relatives per year.
48 State of sacred places
Indicator 12.48.1 Number and size of places of rest and beauty.
49 State of understanding of spiritual value systems
Indicator 12.49.1 Number of value systems that secure people in a planetary, or cosmic, 'grand scheme of things'.
50 State of imaginative objectivity
Indicator 12.50.1 Number of people able to bring to life their innermost feelings about our place in nature, through art and language
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16.3 Managing Sustainable Development
1 Environmental 'conditions', 'states' and 'stocks'
The character of any tract of country is the outcome of three kinds of interacting systems, each of which changes the condition of the environment on a distinct time scale. These are:
- the physical systems that mould rocks, and determine the condition of soils;
- the biological systems that govern variety and productivity of food chains;
- the cultural systems that tap into physical and biological processes as resources, according to one or more perceptions of the condition of the environment, as a source of environmental goods (material and notional).
Physical and biological processes may be regarded as 'nature's inputs' which affect the condition of the environment. In this sense the condition is defined as a particular 'state' of being, or existence. The environment is changed from one measurable state to another. A state may be defined as the amount of something, which is a measure of the state. The amount is called a 'stock' which quantifies a specific feature of the environment when is is measured and given a value. Taking non-renewable resources from the environment is an output which reduces the stock of resources, and inevitably changes its state. Environmental stocks are defined according to the dominant cultural perceptions of the goods to be derived from them. As long as the goods have value, behaviour patterns develop to define norms for the stocks, and systems to monitor and manage them to sustain the supply of goods.
These cultural perceptions of stocks of environmental resources are:
•its condition as a utilitarian resource; •its condition as a recreational resource; •its condition as a scenic resource; •its condition as a spiritual resource; •its condition as an historical resource; •its condition as a scientific resource.
2 Systems
An output of goods from an environment changes a valued condition, and raises the problems, issues and challenges as to the value of sustaining that condition by intervention. The dynamic relationship between a condition, the factors which change its state, and the process of intervention defines a management system. In order for intervention to be effective it is necessary to have an indicator of the stock that can be measured to see how far the state has moved from its favourable condition.
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Planning directed to restore or sustain a favourable environmental condition is a special cultural process which:-
- sets goals or targets for favourable conditions of environment; - monitors the spatial impact of any change in condition against the goals using indicators of the stock; - and initiates flows of activity (e.g.implementation and/or co-ordination of policies) to minimise any difference between the actual condition, and its favourable condition (the goal).
This is a design for an environmental management system. (Fig 1). The goal of the system is to maintain the condition of the environment in a favourable state. The state is measured by one of its attributes that may be taken as an indicator for management to target the main factors which move it towards, or away from, the desired state.
Fig 1 A model of environmental management
The dynamic relationships between condition, indicators, and factors are set out in Fig 2.
Fig 2 Relationships between conditions, indicators and factors in an environmental system.
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A sustainable condition is set as an objective of management. It is a balance between inflows of materials and energy which maintain it, and outflows of materials and energy, which reduce it. The condition may refer to a feature; e.g. a species, a facility; e.g. a building, or a provision; e.g. a demand, or stipulation, written into a lease or license.
In order to maintain a sustainable condition, one or more of its element, i.e. a feature, facility and provision has to be maintained, or operated, within acceptable limits, using indicators of sustainability. These indicators measure the current outcome of the balance between inflows and outflows.
Therefore, a management plan starts with an objective that has an indicator of sustainability, and sets out the procedures that a manager has to carry out in order to manipulate the factors that influence the condition of the system's features, facilities or provisions.
A diagram of a management system to maintain a population in a sustainable state is given in Fig 3. The system may be defined diagramatically in terms of:-
- the inflows of births: - the outflows of deaths; - a sustainability indicator of number of people; - the main factors influencing births, which are:-
- the number of childbearing couples, which is governed by the percentage of child-bearing couples in the population,
- and the number of children produced by each couple.
As it stands in Fig 3 the system will produce an ever-increasing population; and emulates the current unsustainable situation in many parts of the world. Management to reduce births works on the critical factor of number of children per couple. Social programmes are applied to the reduce the number of children per couple according to the extent of the difference between actual number of people, and the target deemed to be sustainable. This the negative feed-back component of management, which is essential to effectively target a management objective.
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Fig 3 A management system to target a sustainable population
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CONSUMERMATICS: A SUBJECT FOR LIVING IN A CONSUMER SOCIETY
It is the manner and issue of consumption which are the real tests of production. Production does not consist in things labouriously made, but in things serviceably consumable; and the question for the nation is not how much labour it employs, but how much life it produces. For as consumption is the end and aim of production, so life is the end and aim of consumption. (John Ruskin, 1862)
1 The Terms 'Nature' And 'Natural'
1.1 The word nature is commonly used to define environmental systems which determine the existence and arrangement of, matter, forces, and events, that are not controlled by man. Widely accepted, definitions of what is natural, include all wild, primitive environments, which are largely untouched by human activities and creations. Natural environments are based on man-free biological processes interacting with their local inanimate surroundings of rocks soil and climate to form complex, unpredictable systems.
2 Nature Conforms To Physical Laws
2.1 All systems defined as natural are governed by the laws of physics.
They conform to:-
- the laws of mechanics, which deal with properties of solids, such as mass, momentum and deformation; - the properties of fluids, such as viscosity and surface tension; - the laws of heat, heat flow and diffusion; - the laws of electricity and magnetism; - the physics of wave motions and sound; - the properties of light; - the laws of atomic energy.
3 The Global Economy
3.1 According to these underlying physical laws, the orderly interplay between the various parts of a natural system or structure may be defined as its economy. In this sense the global economy defines those forces responsible for maintaining nature in a dynamic state by the continuous transformation of materials and energy. This takes place through geological forces, climate, and/or animal and plant life cycles.
3.2 The global economy is made up of three interlocking component economies:
- the planetary economy deals with expressions of the earth's energy of heat and motion;
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- the solar economy deals with expressions of the impact of solar radiation on the earth; - the animate economy deals with materials and energy flows as expressions of the ways in which organisms live together.
4 Human Resources
4.1 We are part of nature and our existence as a species depends on drawing from the three global economies, the materials and energy we require for our social systems. The local management of these flows of materials and energy for producing goods and services is defined as 'natural economy'
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4.2 It is convenient to divide human resources of natural economy into two kinds:-
- physical resources which are derived from the planetary and solar economies; - biological resources which are derived in the animate economy.
5 New Knowledge Systems Are Needed
5.1 The Portuguese were first in the field of European oceanic adventure, and by the end of the 15th century the whole course of trade was shifted and revolutionised. The Earth's natural resources were there for the taking. World development had started, and with it began the decline in global biodiversity. It was the inventiveness of the international team of pilots, cartographers and astronomers, sponsored by Prince Henry the Navigator, which placed Portugal in the vanguard of the process of maritime discovery and invention.
5.2 Now, 600 years later, we require new knowledge navigation systems, based on the issues, challenges and problems of world development, to halt the world- wide loss of animals, plants, and genetic resources, and chart a course towards sustainable development. In particular, we need to share information and ideas across national boundaries, so that families can help implement the environmental manifesto set out in the Rio Summit Conference on the Environment in 1992.
5.3 "... the privilege of geography being an old-established subject is currently resulting in certain questions. First by those practising other sciences who ask: why should geography continue to be taught even if this was once justified; has it not been overtaken by the development of other disciplines? Secondly, from within the subject itself: an 'ageing' discipline must of necessity question its values and its content which may need renewal. Unfortunately, the curriculum is enshrined in institutional structures which tend to become ossified, and a risk exists that too great a rift may develop between geographical research in universities and geography teaching in schools." Phillipe Pinchemel
5.4 " Humans have the capacity to organise their experiences by categorising them so that a whole fund of varied experiences can be subsumed under one concept that is named. In this way we can make sense of our bewildering and multifarious environment, classifying our experiences and slotting them in to our growing conceptual filing system. Efforts are now being made to concentrate on the understanding of key ideas of geography based on the notion that each discipline has certain key concepts which form the core of the subject and to which all studies are related. It seems important to look further into the question of the nature of concepts and their value as the 'structural steel of thinking' and how we can encourage effective conceptual learning in geography" Michael C Naish
5.5 These quotations are taken from the "New UNESCO Resource Book for Geography Teaching". The book was prepared by the Commission on Geographical Education under contract with UNESCO in the early 1980s, as an attempt to stimulate the production of an education that was relevant to major problems posed by the
Contents p 72 Edition June 1, 2008 peopling of the earth. Teachers in other traditional disciplines will see the impediments of boundaries and mode of delivery which were highlighted by Pinchemel and Naish reflected in their own subjects. Non-geographers have increasingly to deal with the spatial coincidence of economic activity and environmental deterioration, and for 'geography' they could read 'biology', 'history' or 'archaeology'. Problems of compartmentation of subject matter are widespread and acute, and it has become clear that attempts must be made to integrate 'world development education' and 'conservation education' by creating holistic conceptual structures which cut across old subject boundaries.
5.6 Since the English 16th century lawyer Francis Bacon first attempted to produce a conceptual system of knowledge dealing with "man's empire over nature", many authors have taken up his unfinished task. All faced the problem that the study of world development is limited by the fixed format of the printed page. Textbooks and reports are inflexible academic tools in an ever-changing world. Printed material is confined in time because of the author's ideological standpoint, and the period in which it is produced. It is confined in space because pagination imposes an arbitrary linear progression of knowledge. The user is hampered by having to rely on a given binary index, to make a personal body of knowledge. Scanning pages by eye is a severe limitation in gathering the necessary cross-referenced text to provide a balanced perspective. Also, books go 'out of print; and the 'gems' of novel ideas and formats are buried under an ever-growing stream of new publications.
5.7 This paper will demonstrate how these impediments to the use of paper media for studying the multidimensional problems of environment may be overcome by designing arrays of interlocking hexagons, each representing a concept related to concepts in adjacent hexes, to produce a simple computerised format of the 17th century holistic knowledge system defined as 'natural economy'.
6 Economics And Environment
6.1 Human evolution is unique in that it has produced social groups which function co-operatively in gathering and assimilating natural resources through the use of tools, facilities and symbols. Tools operate as extensions of the body, and transmit the motions of the body in more effective and efficient ways; facilities are extensions of natural objects or modifications of them, and manage natural motions; symbols are a projection of the mind upon objects to give them significance in the social system. These three features of human behaviour are the material means by which we contrive to influence the course of natural events and make them serve our wants. They are central to the development of economic systems which are the basis of our ever growing command of natural resources. From this point of view, human economic activity dominates the planet's biophysical systems and makes man unique amongst the animals. The study of man as 'the economic animal' is therefore central to an understanding of world development and the need to conserve our biophysical capital.
6.2 An economic system is created when a natural resource is perceived and methods applied to abstract it from the natural world to deliver goods and services. World development can be said to have started when tools, facilities and symbols first became embodied in a production, transport, and communication system to regulate
Contents p 73 Edition June 1, 2008 the circulation of goods and services. Since then the exploitation of natural resources by every historical economic organisation has been reflected in the material features of the local landscape which provided the raw materials to sustain supplies of goods and services. Because man is a genuinely social animal, and human life is socially regulated, the utilisation of natural resources also requires some kind of social regulation of production, which is expressed as the 'production culture'.. These two interrelated economic features of a human production system, availability of natural resources and the social dimensions of exploitation, may be expressed as its 'natural economy' and its 'political economy'. In essence, natural economy describes the regulation of natural resources for production, whilst political economy describes the regulation of human resources for production.
6.3 The study of political economy in relation to world development is a long- standing academic activity. As an applied subject it consists of a blend of political history and monetary economics. Natural economy, on the other hand, has never been clearly defined. It first emerged with a view of the biophysical unity of human production systems, implied in ideas of 'mans empire over nature', common to several world knowledge systems at the turn of the 16th century, but was soon lost with the rapid growth of science. Its vital ingredients of invention, investment capital, and technology, became detached from so-called pure science which is required to understand where natural resources came from an how they were sustained. Only in recent times have the vital social dimensions of natural economy been clarified with the consolidation of anthropology, social history, and demography.
6.4 If it means anything at all to modern economists and historians, natural economy is the behavioural superstructure that governs 'natural', or day to day living, where there is a cultural emphasis on production systems and the mangement of their environmental impacts. In contrast, 'economics' operates on a wider stage of national and international politics, which emphasises commercialism and monetary flows. However, it is clear that we do need to distinguish concepts that define the cultural ordering of space from those that define the monetary ordering of space, because the cultural and economic maps cannot always be superimposed. Cultural development predates the world economy, and natural economy may therefore be defined as the technological expressions of social systems which tap natural resources to supply human needs and wants. Scientifically, natural economy defines the inventions and technologies by which the earth's biophysical economies are drawn into the human economy. Historically, natural economy defines a stream of behavioural evolution of social groups taking economic decisions from preindustrial economic units to industrial ones.
6.5 The natural economy of preindustrial-economies or consumer economies, involves each unit of production taking in and processing commodities right to the point where they are ready for the consumer as final products. The products are intended for permanent or terminal use in the form in which they are acquired. They are not for incorporation by other producers into more developed and complex products, and are not subject to further exchange. In contrast, industrial production systems are producer- orientated. One of their distinctive features is that they are organised to effect a transfer of goods from one producer to another in unfinished form. The consumer is at the end of a long line of producers each of whom has added something to the final product. World development has progressed as 'consumer-
Contents p 74 Edition June 1, 2008 orientated' production systems have given way to 'producer-orientated production systems'. Now, even agriculture has developed in this direction. Industrialism and agrarianism are not producer orientated and the conservation aspect of self-sufficiency characteristic of early consumer economies has virtually disappeared. To ensure a steady supply of natural resources, not only to satisfy our material wants but also our spiritual ones, requires the application of ecological economics to industrialism and agrarianism. This third element in modern natural economy is really an expression of ethnoecology which characterised early human cultures whose needs were sustained by cropping self-renewing seminatural ecosystems. Modern attempts to conserve wildlife and heritage, and place a monetary value on seminatural ecosystems for the various classes of goods we can derive from them, are contemporary expressions of ethnoecology.
7 Ecosacy
7.1 There is a growing appreciation that education should shift from the academic isolationism of special subjects to focus on the practical and spiritual needs of a heavily populated planet where human well-being is dependent on developments in trade and industrialisation. This view has recently been crystallised as the need for environmental awareness to be introduced through primary education as the third "ACY", i.e. we inculcate literacy and numeracy; we should now develop "ecosacy" as early as possible so that children can delineate their community's consumption of natural resources in a global context. The importance of a global consolidation of education around 'goods' , 'trade', 'economies', and 'resources' is not really new. It was the intuitive response of the first modern European entrepreneurs, evident in the motto of the Dutch 17th century humanist Johan Maurits, who felt that knowledge should be assembled on a common basis "as far as the world goes ".
7.2 It was no accident that seventeenth century Dutch culture generated the first moves towards an international body of knowledge. It was based on a flourishing economy supported by the largest European merchant fleet trading natural resources with countries of the Baltic, the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Far East, as well as the continents of Africa, South America and North America. The definition of natural economy as a three-way relationship between a social organisation, its resources and its markets emerged with the belief in the potential of the natural sciences to control nature for human benefits. In England it may be traced to Francis Bacon's attempt in the seventeenth century to unify knowledge for practical returns. In his 'Advancement of Learning" of 1605 he stressed the importance of making "through-lights" between knowledge about living things, human social organisation and the physical world.
7.3 For about 200 years, the two major interdisciplinary themes that unified the gathering and presentation of knowledge about the development of European consumer economies were natural economy and political economy. Natural economy dealt with the organisation of natural resources for human production. Political economy, as a distinct body of knowledge, is complementary to natural economy. Traditionally, it dealt with questions about how production is socially organised, the factors that determine the pattern of jobs in different production systems, and the social and economic relationships between workers. Increasingly, it deals with the
Contents p 75 Edition June 1, 2008 planning constraints governing the utilisation of natural resources for sustained production. These questions are analysed in relation to different kinds of monetary policies, and economic value-systems.
7.4 The distinction between these two aspects of the social organisation of industrial cultures were put in the following way by John Ruskin in the 1870s, "It is one question, how to get plenty of a good thing, and another whether plenty of it will be good for us." In the context of modern world development, political economy is the launching pad for laws and plans governing development and the need to protect the environment against development. Natural economy delineates the technological innovations by which laws and plans can be realised.
8 Philosophy of Consumermatics
8.1 After much discussion and feedback from teachers, 'consumermatics' as a modern cross-curricular theme has been based on seven 'pillars' or principle divisions of knowledge. Two of these, the planetary economy and the solar economy, delineate the physical resources for human development. The third pillar is the animate economy, which defines the relationships between living things with respect to the provision of biological resources for human development. Together these three pillars comprise the 'resource systems.
8.2 The fourth pillar is knowledge about human social organisation. This delineates the different ways we apply human inventiveness to make technologies and plans to assemble 'production systems' that turn resources into goods and services. Its main sub-divisions are ethnoecology, which embraces all traditional low input survival systems, and modern conservation of wildlife and heritage; cottage and factory industrialism which covers the intensive use of materials and energy to produce capital and consumer goods; and agrarianism, which deals with the intensive use of land for crop production.
8.3 The fifth pillar of consumermatcs is knowledge about the environmental impact of production, which is necessary to describe impact systems resulting from human production and natural events.
8.4 The sixth pillar encompasses the management systems that have to be put in place to control environmental impacts that are not sustainable with respect to the local quality of life.
8.5 The seventh pillar consists of the practical methodologies of analytical topography which are necessary to bring the theme of natural economy to bear on an environmental appraisal of the regional, or local, environment of the school. The practical emphasis of natural economy is on environmental appraisal, with respect to all natural resources (e.g. primeval ecosystems, farm/forestry products, and minerals), that are valued by man. Every social grouping may be characterised by its natural economy. The simplest way of analysing this is to produce a sequential pathway from its natural resources to the products which satisfy physical, biological, and spiritual needs, on the one hand, and the wants of trade, on the other.
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8.6 Consumermatics embraces history, geography, agriculture, biology, anthropology, geology, and economics. It is centred on human cultures and ways in which human environments are managed, both traditionally, and in the context of modern self- reliant development, where industrial methods of producing crops and goods and transporting them to consumers are of paramount importance. From this viewpoint the aim is to encourage children to think about the ways in which people may contribute to planning the rational utilisation of natural resources, and at the same time appreciate that our modern wants can only be satisfied from an economic base of trading and industrialism. The gains to human well-being through industrial development have to be balanced against nature's losses. In this sense it deals with our responsibility to organise our various social uses of nature alongside industrialisation, to sustain the full range of nature's benefits for our total well-being. At the same time, it presents the costs of conservation as debits in business profits and/or lower material horizons in the home. The issues of conservation are about setting the point where the gains in valued environmental features are balanced against an acceptable life style.
8.7 An important aspect is that there is an emphasis on cross-culture comparisons. Pupils will be able to make global assessments of different attitudes towards natural resources in relation to common physical, biological and non-material needs. At regional levels, political boundaries often bear no relationship to biogeographic zones and 'biological corridors', and in this respect natural economy can place local environmental problems in an international setting. This is particularly important because a major problem of development is that different attitudes towards the use of environment are generated through different cultural patterns.
8.8 Trade is the historical starting point from which people move from the natural economy of self-sufficiency towards industrial methods of mass production. Through trade there is a corresponding move from the satisfaction of basic needs to the search for goods and services to satisfy the wants of a better lifestyle. It is also the simplest pedagogical route to teach natural economy; from the goods and services which are traded to satisfy a need or want, to the technologies and materials that sustain the production of the things we buy. Thus, we can discuss the natural economy of the fur trade, the mining industry and the conservation of tropical rainforests within a common set of physical, biological, social and economic principles.
8.9 Consumermatics deals with our place in nature from the point of view of where we stand in the various pathways leading from natural resources to products. These pathways have been mapped diagrammatically in the form of groups of concepts which are linked by flows of resources to products. These flows from one concept to another make a distinct knowledge network which displays inter-linked topics. This topic network can be used for the logical assembly of data and information about the local management of natural resources. By this means the data and information is assembled as a personal body of knowledge.
8.10 To visualise the network, each concept is represented diagrammatically by a hexagon. Each hex can be juxtaposed to a maximum of six others which are directly related to it. Hexes can also be arranged together to represent groups of interrelated concepts as an issue, a process or an overview. Groups of hexes are termed arrays; each hexagon in an array represents one information element (topic cell)..
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8.11 The three basic concepts for studying human use of the environment to increase our well-being and prosperity is represented as a hexagon array in Fig 1. This sets out the three main elements in any knowledge system designed to connect people with their surroundings, in terms of the flows of materials and energy from resources through human groups which process them, and back to the environment, as wastes and the increased demands for resources
Fig 1 The three main elements in human development
8.12 At a basic level, people invent processes to take natural resources from their local environment to satisfy their needs for survival and wants for a better life-style. In so doing the environment is changed, either reversibly or irreversibly. The relationships between these demands and the supply of resources define the human economy, in which processes to extract resources are governed by supply and demand (Fig 2). Supply is stimulated by demand. Demand for goods is the spur which urges people to seek natural resources and process them to increase the supply of goods.
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Fig 2 The relationship between supply and demand for environmental resources
9 Markets and Trading Complexes
9.1 Economies move beyond the level of self-sufficiency when they are able to convert their natural resources into surplus goods which can be exchanged to obtain supplies that cannot be produced locally. Such surplus-producing economies are of two kinds according to extremes of size and complexity. Examples of the lower level operations are local market economies, and the higher ones are the national and international trading complexes. A trading complex can command a larger geographical range of natural resources, and is thus able to supply existing demands and also create new ones by the process of consumerism (Fig 3).
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Fig 3 The two economies; one based on local markets and the other on international trading complexes
9.2 The ultimate recipients of supplies are the household and community and it is at this level that human needs for the essentials of living, and the wants of a better lifestyle, are generated (Fig 4).
Fig 4 The household and community in relation to the generation of demands on the environment and the production of supplies.
.
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10 Natural Economy and Political Economy
10.1 The satisfaction of human needs and wants involves the invention of ways of using natural resources, which, when applied in a local context, determine the social organisation of the community. The system by which a community processes its natural resources, and markets or exchanges the products made from them, is defined as its 'natural economy'. Natural economy begins with the basic human needs for survival which are translated into perceptions of appropriate local natural resources. As the monetary economy develops, wants emerge for goods that improve the quality of life, and which cannot be produced locally. Demands for imported goods, augmented by consumerism, are satisfied by large trading organisations of institutions, states and empires, with widespread financial networks supporting global distribution systems (Fig 5)
Fig 5 Pathways by which natural resources are drawn into the human economy.
10.2 Within consumermatics, natural economy defines the ways in which a particular social group organises its natural resources for production. Human social organisation is also defined by its political economy. Political economy defines the ways in which a social group organises its people for production.
10.3 Past expressions of natural economy are expressed in a community's social history. Past expressions of political economy are evident in political history. Political history cannot be defined without an understanding of social history, so a community's natural economy cannot be defined without an understanding of its political economy.
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10.4 Knowledge about the environment, its uses and dangers, enters local communities and determines the size of the population i.e. its dynamic balance between births, deaths and migration. This emphasises that another important dimension of human social organisation is population dynamics. The interrelationships between natural resources, the natural and political economies and its population is outlined in Fig 6.
Fig 6 Relationship between natural resources and the principle aspects of human social organisation
10.5 It has already been shown how inventiveness is an integral part of human social organisation. This is expressed in science as applied to the perception of the environment as a source of wealth and well-being. Perceptions of environment are also expressed in models of human expression through the arts and religion.
10.6 Environmental resources also exert strong influences on social organisation expressed as clustering in families and their monetary economics. It also affects communication between individuals, the family and other groups.
10.7 All these interrelationships between social organisation and application of environmental knowledge in its natural economy are summarised in Fig 7.
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Fig 7 Major components of human social organisation
10.8 The human economy is based on the use of physical and biological resources which may be classed as natural resources, and the use of technologies by which natural resources are integrated into our social systems. The interaction between a social group and the natural resources available to it defines the local or regional economy.
10.9 The main feature of the human economy is that it produces a wide range of products derived directly or indirectly from natural resources. Human production with natural resources involves the organisation of both people and nature. The study of the ways of organising nature for production is described as 'natural economy'. The study of the ways of organising people for production is described as 'political economy' (Fig 8).
Fig 8 Relationship between the 'economies' which comprise the knowledge system of 'consumermatics'.
11 Origins of Natural Resources
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11.1 The natural economy of an area has contributions from three major systems. These are evident in its basic landscape elements.
11.2 There are the local effects of energy of a spherical rotating planet with a slowly cooling, molten interior, which, in geological time, has produced patterns of terrain and soils, upon which are superimposed north to south vegetation zones..
11.3 These surface features of the planetary economy are maintained by solar energy through the agencies of climate, weather, photochemistry and photosynthesis.
11.4 The local symbiotic economy is expressed in the flows of materials and energy through evolution, and the interactions and interdependencies of plants animals and microbes in food chains, and materials cycles. These interrelationships are often expressed as 'the balance of nature', and provide the basis for self-renewable agriculture and industrialisation.
11.5 As an applied body of knowledge natural economy has to be related to the systems which produced and sustain the natural resources upon which all human economies depend.
11.6 Natural resources are of two kinds; physical and biological. Physical resources are derived from the Earth's store of heat by past and present processes (planetary economy), and from the impact of solar radiation (the solar economy). Biological resources are produced from the operation of food chains and food webs (the animate economy. These three supporting economies are set out as an array in Fig 9.
Fig 9 The provision of natural resources for human social organisation
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12 Flows In A Natural Economy
12.1 The natural economy model (Fig 10) defines landscape dynamically as a cultural base resulting from the interaction of the following basic flows;
-flows of natural resources into human societies, supported, and influenced by:- -flows of carbon through biological systems; -flows of climatic energy, which impact locally as heat, wind, rainfall/ice, tides and ocean currents; -flows of planetary energy, from the earth’s inner structure and its molten core, expressed in earth movements and local geological hot-spots, where heat, and/or magma reaches the surface.
12.2 The different flows are characterised as follows:-
- flows of natural resources are expressions of the human economy;
- flows of photosynthetic carbon and climatic flows of air and water are expressions of the solar economy;
- geological flows of materials and energy arising from processes in the earth’s crust and core are expressions of the planetary economy.
Fig 10 The materials and energy flows of natural economy focusing on the local economic landscape
12.3 The three distinct economies set the conceptual boundaries to every natural economy. This perspective is completed diagrammatically in the array set out in Fig 11.
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Fig 11 The three ‘economies’ which contribute to flows of natural resources in a particular economic landscape.
12.4 The main local inputs to any system of natural resource utilisation (Fig 12) are:- - land (for obtaining the resources, and for living and processing them); - technology (the outcome of local inventiveness and construction skills); - labour (the availability of people to make a worthwhile production system); - management (the organisation of human skills to make a production system); - and capital (some form of local wealth for investment in labour and technology, that can be augmented by trading products).
Fig 12 Major factors contributing to the human economy
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12.5 Natural economy takes a physicochemical view of the Earth in relation to its potential for human development. At this level, natural economy is a global account of natural resources, and the ways they are used by people. The global account is made up from a myriad of local accounts arising from the use of the environment by farmers, industrialists, municipal authorities and private individuals. In this sense, every field, district and country has a unique natural economy, according to the way it is managed to sustain families and populations.
12.6 Natural economy is therefore the logical subject within which to study historical and current problems of local management of the environment from the point of view of the need to establish a practical system of environmental book keeping. It therefore presents a resource-orientated attitude to environment, through the analysis of the range of basic human behaviours by which people change the face of the earth. A major viewpoint is that governments and local communities increasingly have to deal in the economics of competitive resource utilisation, not only in monetary terms, but basically to set a dynamic balance of land use, first to gain, and then to maintain prosperity. On the credit side is prosperity; in the debit column of the global account is the decline of wildlife communities, unclean rivers and the loss of human well- being through the creation of unstable agricultural systems.
12.7 These three major economies provide the potential and limits for human evolution and social development, regionally and locally.
12.8 The local primeval symbiotic economy is likely to have been the stimulus for human development of the area. The local natural economy derived from it may take one of the following forms.
- a self-renewing production system, either as an extension of the symbiotic economy or a replacement of it.
- a production system that involves the irreversible destruction of the symbiotic economy.
World development is characterised by the preponderance of destructive production systems.
13 Processes And Systems
13.1 However, and wherever they operate, natural systems destroy neither energy nor substance. Whatever goes into a natural process can be accounted for in the economic analysis at the end. The danger of human development is that the forms of energy and substance will be converted into by-products that cannot be re-utilised. A convenient way of studying the natural economy of a particular environment is to delineate the kinds of processes, natural and man-made, that have made a major impact upon it as a socio-economic system.
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13.2 Each environment is dominated by one or more processes, each a local expression of one of the energy systems;.
Natural processes - e.g. erosion, siltation, earth movements, climatic desertification
Human processes: - e.g. deforestation, settlement, wetland drainage, waste disposal.
13.3 The ever-increasing demands of world development for natural resources indicate that wherever possible natural resources should be managed for sustained use as a symbiotic economy. This means that, sometimes, short-term monetary economics have to be subservient to longer term demands on natural resources based on spiritual, moral and aesthetic values, and the likely needs of future generations for unspoiled nature.
13.4. Consumermatics is presented as a multi-disciplinary, multi-dimensional ideological scaffold centred on an industrial model of world development. It will be shown how this scaffold can be used as a navigation system to make connections between economics, the natural sciences, and the humanities, for defining past, present, and future local development. Commercially available software for structuring and analysing text, allows the conceptual structure to be integrated with books that are valuable landmarks of human development.
13.5 Models of complex systems can be assembled with user friendly software tools to add dynamic and predictive dimensions. Such models are 'learning laboratories' in which the learner can change the various limiting factors and introduce new management proposals. This approach is particular valuable in the study of resource- orientated problems facing modern society, which often involve simultaneous inputs from economics, history, government and the sciences.
13.6 A practical methodology to provide data of particular significance to the learner starts from an analysis of the vernacular landscape. This should be orientated towards the local environment of the school.
13.7 The overall goal of the knowledge navigation system is to gain a personal understanding of the differences between societies that are major impediments to human development and harmonious global coexistence. It concentrates on three educational themes of world development according to whether human resource seeking behaviours are viewed from the point of view of social evolution, the production of goods for trade, or the environmental impact of resource utilisation on environment and planning.
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14 Cross-curricular Perspective
14.1 From discussions with educationalists and teachers the theme of 'consumermatics' appears to be most useful as a cross-curricular focus for a range of educational objectives which are common to most schools science curricula (Table 1). Details of a course in consumermatics which could form the basis for providing a unified two-year course of study at GCSE level is given in Table 2. An example of how the theme of 'consumermatics' may be used to make and consolidate cross- curricular links between otherwise disparate objectives is given in Appendix 1, with reference to science objectives of the British National Curriculum.
14.2 Table 1 Major knowledge areas of consumermatics
All students should be able to describe:-
A RESOURCE SYSTEMS
The Planetary Economy
The Solar Economy
B PRODUCTION SYSTEMS
Production cultures
Population growth
Use of the lithosphere
Use of freshwater
Use of the oceans
Use of the atmosphere
Use of vegetation and soils
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C HUMAN IMPACT SYSTEMS
Materials and energy
Water
The oceans at risk
Atmosphere
Ecosystems
People
Land at risk
Agriculture
C NATURAL IMPACT SYSTEMS
Earthquakes
Diseases
Climatic accidents
D MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
Materials and Energy
Fresh Water
Oceans
Atmosphere
Ecosystems
Human Population
Rural development
Sustainable agriculture
Industrial ecology
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Table 2 Natural economy and its background knowledge. The numbered attainment targets have been taken from the 1969 International GSCE "Natural Ecnonomy" examined by the Cambridge International Local Examination Syndicate.
The Planetary Economy
1. Lithosphere Systems and cycles
1.1 the structure of the Earth core, mantle, crust. 1.2 the rock cycle and rock formation igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic. 1.3 the distribution, types and reserves of major minerals metal ores and fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal). 1.4 the main forms and characteristic locations of major minerals. lodes, veins, alluvial deposits; sedimentary basins, continental shelves. 1.5 the formation of fossil fuels. 1.6 the crust/tectonic cycle plate tectonics, earth movements (folding, faulting, mountain building) earthquake zones, vulcanicity.
Tidal system
19 Soil System
19.1 the formation and composition of soils mineral and organic content, air, water, role of soil organisms. 19.2 soil as a medium for growth nutrients, pH, pore space, aeration, drainage 19.3 simple soil classification. clay (heavy); loam (medium); sandy (light) 19.4 the characteristics and properties of soils in relation to land use potential.
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The Solar Economy
13. Atmospheric system
13.1 how the Sun releases energy and transmits it to Earth, insolation. 13.2 the factors which contribute to solar heat balance of earth and atmosphere radiation, absorption, reflection. 13.3 the structure and composition of the atmosphere importance of the ozone layer, carbon dioxide and water vapour in the air. 13.4 the balances which maintain the Earth's atmosphere as a mixture of gases oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. 13.5 how the elements of weather are measured, recorded, and interpreted temperature, precipitation, cloud, atmospheric pressure, wind. 13.6 major climatic types through interpretation of climate graphs and maps.
Tropical — equatorial, monsoon, savanna Dry — steppe, desert Temperate— warm, cool Cold — tundra, polar
13.7 'climatic accidents' (extremes of weather): how they occur and where they are prone to happen cyclone, flood, drought.
5. The water system
5.1 how the water cycle operates 5.2 how the natural availability of water varies from place to place. 5.3 the role of the water cycle within ecosystems links between rainfall, vegetation and soils (interception, infiltration, surface run-off).
6. Ocean systems
6.1 the role of the ocean as an environment for interdependent ecosystems. 6.2 the resource potential of the oceans. 6.3 the physical factors producing ocean currents prevailing winds, Earth's rotation, sea water density. 6.4 the distribution of ocean currents and their effects on climate and on fisheries.
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18. Vegetation Systems
18.1 the distribution of main natural vegetation zones (biomes) and relationship to climatic zones.
Forest — tropical rainforest, monsoon forest, taiga, broad-leaved deciduous, 'mediterranean' Grassland— savanna, steppe Desert — desert, semi-desert, tundra. 18.2 resource potential and role of vegetation climate determinant, soil protector, carbon dioxide sink and oxygen source, genetic resource.
17. The Animate Economy
17.1 how an ecosystem is defined. 17.2 levels of an ecosystem biographic zone, habitat, niche. 17.3 physical factors temperature, humidity, water, salinity, light, pH, soils, nutrients, wind and wind currents. 17.4 relationships of living organisms producers, consumers, food chains and webs, competition, predation, pollination, dispersal, vegetational succession. 17.5 energy flow photosynthesis, food chains, food webs, carbon and nitrogen cycles. 17.6 nutrient cycling carbon and nitrogen cycle. 17.7 how plant and animal communities have evolved to adapt to their environment biodiversity. 17.8 resource potential genetic resource, and biodiversity as a food base and material resource.
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B PRODUCTION SYSTEMS
All students should be able to describe:-
20 Production cultures
20.1 how different types of human society use and value their natural environment hunter-gatherer, nomadic pastoralist, farming, industrial 20.2 the increasing ability of humankind to modify the natural environment and to create artificial environments, as a result of economic and technological development and social and cultural change e.g. in agriculture: domestication of plants and animals, modern agricultural methods, genetic engineering
21. Population growth
21.1 world population distribution and the factors which influence it 21.2 population growth rates of birth and death, fertility, life expectancy, infant mortality 21.3 population structure population pyramids, young and ageing populations 21.4 migration push/pull, length of time, urban/rural 21.5 the model of demographic transition and its limitations
2. Use of the lithosphere
2.1 the methods of search and extraction of rocks, minerals and fossil fuels 2.2 the uses of rocks and minerals in industrial processes 2.3 types of energy production from fossil and nuclear fuels 2.4 the location of the main centres of mining and energy production in relation to major centres of population and industry 2.5 main supply and demand constraints in exploiting mineral resources geological factors, depletion rates, climatic factors, transport, fluctuation of prices
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2.6 the economic aspects and limitations of earthquake and volcanic zones 2.7 the implications of the patterns of global trade in minerals and energy 2.8 how industrial development is used to achieve social and economic goals
7. Use of freshwater
7.1 collection and control of water for a variety of uses water supply (storage, transfer, dams, reservoirs); industry and domestic use; waste disposal; power; agriculture (irrigation) 7.2 competing demands for water 7.3 mismatch between water supply and demand 7.4 the ways in which processes operating within the water cycle affect development causes and effects of flooding and drought
8. Use of the oceans
8.1 the environment and human factors in the distribution and exploitation of the world's ocean fisheries 8.2 how non-living ocean resources, e.g. minerals and fossil fuels, are extracted 8.3 factors that limit full exploitation of the ocean's potential resources
14. Use of the atmosphere
14.1 oxygen as a resource, wind as a power resource 14.2 use of the atmosphere as a dispersal medium for waste gases smoke particles and exhaust fumes
22. Use of vegetation and soils
22.1 factors influencing the clearance of natural vegetation over time farming (crops, grazing), timber (fuel, building, furniture), paper (pulp), chemicals (gums, resins), settlement (towns, cities) 22.2 the different types and systems of farming croplands/grazing lands, intensive/extensive, subsistence/commercial 22.3 the environmental, technological, economic and social factors which influence the distribution of different types and systems of farming
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22.4 new agricultural techniques which increase yields irrigation, biological controls, the benefits of chemicals ( fertilisers and pesticides), mechanisation, capital subsidies 22.5 the factors which influence the patterns of agricultural output and trade North-South trade in commodities, cash crops vs food crops
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C HUMAN IMPACT SYSTEMS
All students should be able to describe:-
3. Materials and energy
3.1 the impact of mineral exploitation on the environment and on human activity and health 3.2 the global economic consequences of the over- exploitation and depletion of mineral and fossil fuel reserves 3.3 the implications in social, economic and environmental terms of different types of energy production fossil fuels compared with nuclear 3.5 the impact of industrial development on the environment and on human activity and health
9. Water
9.1 the causes and consequences of water pollution impact on natural ecosystems, the physical environment, human activity and health 9.2 contrasts in availability of water in terms of quality, quantity and access between urban and rural communities; between countries
10. The oceans at risk
10.1 the implications of uncontrolled exploitation of marine resourses fishing, continental shelf and deep-sea mineral resources 10.2 causes of marine pollution and its impact on the marine ecosystem and on coastal zones PCBs, heavy metals and oil
15. Atmosphere
15.1 human activities which alter the composition of the atmosphere and climate deforestation, burning of fossil fuels, industrial and vehicle emissions, use of CFCs 15.2 causes of atmospheric pollution carbon dioxide, CFCs, methane, sulphur and nitrogen oxides, lead 15.3 variation of atmospheric pollution with time and space 15.4 how damage to the ozone layer was detected, measured and linked to atmospheric pollution 15.5 the effects of pollution on atmospheric conditions
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acid rain, the greenhouse effect, temperature inversion
23. Ecosystems
23.1 habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, genetic erosion 23.2 the effect on wildlife of elimination or disturbance of important elements of the food chain as a result of development draining of wetlands, impounding water, deforestation, intensive agricultural practices
24. People
24.1 the implications of population growth rates and structures for social and economic development and the natural environment 24.2 the dimensions of world poverty and the North-South gap per capita incomes, inadequacy of housing, levels of disease and nutrition 24.3 the implications of the cycle of poverty, as it affects individuals and communities, for the environment 24.4 urbanisation causes (push/pull factors), problems (housing, congestion, pollution, loss of agricultural land, provision of services) 24.5 how collapse of the environmental resource base endangers the demographic transition
25. Land at risk
25.1 causes and consequences of rapid and progressive deforestation clearance for fuelwood, subsistence and cash crop farming, settlement, timber extraction and grazing; links with desertification, climate changes, effect on people (displacement, lack of fuel) 25.2 causes and consequences of soil erosion and desertification removal of vegetation, overgrazing, overcultivation, clearance of slopes, poor irrigation; food shortage and water shortage, displacement of people 25.3 causes and consequences of land pollution salination, toxic waste, nuclear waste, domestic waste, harmful effects of pesticides and fertilisers; groundwater contamination, health risks.
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26. Agriculture
26.1 the impact of indiscriminate agricultural practices overuse of pesticides (pests build up resistance, pollution risk) and inorganic fertilisers (high cost, pollution risk), spreading monocultures, thirsty crops requiring irrigation, traditional crop varieties disappearing, overproduction and waste in developed countries, concentration of land in hands of fewer owners, environmental damage (pollution, soil erosion) 26.2 the advantages and disadvantages of the 'green revolution'
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C NATURAL IMPACT SYSTEMS
All students should be able to describe:-
Earthquakes
3.4 the impact of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions on human communities damage, loss of life, danger to health in aftermath, economic dislocation
Diseases
9.3 the cycle of water-related diseases, and their impact on human activities and development water-based (bilharzia); water-borne (diarrhoea); water-bred (malaria).
Climatic accidents
15.7 the impact of climatic accidents on human communities damage, loss of life, danger to health in aftermath, loss of production 14.3 the interaction between climate and human activity shelter and clothing; farming affected by climate 15.6 the implications of changes in the atmosphere and climate effects on health, food production, water supply, ecosystems
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D MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
All students should be able to describe:-
4. Materials and Energy
4.1 conservation schemes for damaged environments landscaping, restoration, reclamation, filtration, waste management 4.2 technologies and viability of alternative energy sources solar, wind, wave, geothermal, hydro-electric, biomass 4.3 strategies for conservation and management of mineral and fossil fuel resources increased efficiency in use, insulahon, recycling, power from waste, new technology 4.4 strategies for managing the impacts of earthquakes and volcanic activity planning site of settlement (land use zoning) and structure of buildings, disaster relief
Fresh Water
11. Clean, safe water strategies 11.1 ways of improving water quantity, quality and access pollution control, improved sanitation, distribution for more efficient water use, desalination 11.2 strategies to control and eradicate water-related diseases drugs, vector control and eradication, improved sanitation, clean water supply, chlorination
12. Oceans
12.1 strategies for the sustainable harvesting of ocean fisheries net types and sizes, quotas, conservation laws, territoriality 12.2 international cooperation on mineral extraction from the sea bed 12.3 marine pollution controls and remedial action international cooperation and legislation, dealing with oil spills
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16. Atmosphere
16.1 strategies to reduce atmospheric pollution and climatic change CFC replacement, reduction of pollutant emissions, reforestation 16.2 satellite imaging as a means of monitoring the global environment 16.3 moves towards international action and changing attitudes to deal with the causes and consequences of the damage to the ozone layer 16.4 strategies to reduce the negative impact of climatic accidents improved forecasting, appropriate settlement patterns and buildings, disaster relief
27. Ecosystems
27.1 strategies for conservation of biodiversity and the genetic resource sustainable harvesting of wild plant and animal species, national parks and wildlife reserves, gene banks 27.2 world conservation strategies and legislation the work of UNEP, IUCN and WWF
28. Human Population
28.1 strategies for managing population growth in relation to the pace of economic development and environmental sustainability family planning, improved health and education, national policies 28.2 strategies for managing the urban and rural environments in relation to the pace of economic development and environmental sustainability planning, environmental improvement, community participation 28.3 strategies for overcoming world inequalities improved trade and aid conditions, governmental and non-governmental aid, food aid
29. Rural development
29.1 strategies for soil conservation tree planting, terracing, contour ploughing, land farming, wind breaks, integrated rural development programmes, land reform, community participation
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29.2 sustainable forest management techniques agro-forestry, community forestry, reforestation, sustainable harvesting of hardwoods, fuelwood planting, genetic engineering 29.3 alternatives to deforestation more efficient use of timber, recycling (paper/timber), alternative materials to timber
30. Sustainable agriculture
30.1 strategies for sustainable agriculture plant breeding, integrated pest control, mixed cropping, conservation tillage, gene banks, new crop strains, trickle drip irrigation, organic alternatives to inorganic fertilisers 30.2 harvesting energy from living resources to provide power biomass, biogas (methane), fuel from organic waste
Industrial ecology
4.5 industrial materials, technologies, and approaches which can contribute to solving environmental problems monitoring, remedial action, recycling (processing wastes and industrial products at end of life), low waste technology (developing cleaner processes and products, conservation and efficiency)
14.3 Examples of classroom objectives suitable for compiling such a course from within existing subjects at different levels of attainment have been listed for two categories of learners in Table 2. These objectives come from a wide range of conventional subjects, showing that natural economy offers a framework for taking existing conventional courses and using natural economy to provide links between them. They have been divided into core objectives, which provide the essential basic knowledge (C), and supplementary objectives which allow further in depth studies (S). Three core objectives would be obligatory to obtain a basic understanding of world development. This arrangement was the first approach of the Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate working party to delineate the subject of natural economy.
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Table 2 Natural economy as an cross-ccurricular assembly of classroom objectives from different subjects in the British National Curriculum
A Subject areas which form the basis of categorising classroom objectives to provide a unified two-year course of study. The core and supplement division divides the objectives into obligatory core objectives to obtain a general understanding of world development, and optional supplementary objectives for in depth study.
B The individual classroom objectives for a two year course in natural economy for 15 year plus divided into those which provide the essential basic knowledge (C) and supplementary objectives which allow further in depth study. (details of classroom objectives are given in Appendix 2)
A Subject areas
Section Core Supplement
1 The Planetary Economy 10 8
1 Structural Dynamics 4 3 2 Biological zonation 3 2 3 Soil 3 3
2 The Solar Economy 6 6
1 Solar and lunar cycles 1 1 2 Weather, tides and ocean currents 2 2 3 Photosynthesis and respiration 2 1 4 Origins of fossil fuels and atomic energy 1 2
3 The Animate Economy 5 6
1 History of ecological ideas 1 1 2 The ecosystem concept 2 1 3 Structure of ecosystems 1 2 4 Dynamics of ecosystems 1 2
4 Natural Economy 38 20
Ethnoecology
1 Man's origins and distribution 4 3 2 Ethnic resource complexes 3 2 3 Development of ethnic complexes 8 9 4 Cultural attitudes to natural resources 2 1 5 Environmental protection 12 8 6 Ecological economics 3 5
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Agrarianism
1 Settlement 6 3 2 Development of agriculture 6 3
Factory Industrialism
1 Industrialisation 4 2 2 Non-renewable and renewable energy 6 2 3 Non-renewable and renewable materials 5 7 4 Disturbances due to industrialism 4 7 5 Dynamics of Human Populations 16 8
Investigation of the local natural economy 3 + a project in analytical topography
15 Educational Objectives
15.1 In general terms the educational objectives of natural economy should concentrate on imparting the following skills which are categorised in domains (Fig 3.1). The three domains for the objectives of natural economy as an interdisciplinary theme are:
- A. Knowledge with understanding - B. Judgement - C. Discovery
15.2 The objectives of the knowledge domain are to encourage the learner:-
- to demonstrate the ability to state facts and describe processes. - to locate, select, organise, collate and present environmental knowledge from a variety of disciplines. - to use their environmental knowledge to show an understanding of dynamic concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence. - to demonstrate specific information about the ways people use their physical and biological resources, making global comparisons wherever possible. - to show an understanding of the physical, biological and cultural processes which are relevant to local and global resource management, and the influence of resource management on the spatial and density distribution of people. - to demonstrate the operation and interactions of such processes which determine the diversity of the natural environment, the quality of human life, and the level of economic development.
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- to recognise and understand the presuppositions, motives and influences which shape the attitudes of people towards natural resources. - to show an ability to look at environmental issues from the perspective of different cultures.
15.3 In the judgement domain, learners should aim to:
- recognise patterns, structures and trends in environmental knowledge and form generalisations; - analyse environmental processes by determining the relationships; between objects, and conditions, using a variety of sources, but particularly maps and numerical data; - present reasoned explanations for environmental phenomena, patterns and relationships; - make models of the complex interactions of people with environmental processes, using diagrams, graphs, and charts, and appreciate the problems of matching them with reality; - evaluate the future environmental implications of particular courses of socio-economic action.
15.4 In the discovery domain, learners should aim to be able to:
- enquire into a range of environmental problems by locating, classifying and processing information with the aim of communicating the outcome of their findings as a balanced view; - explore an area of knowledge through participating in collaborative activities, such as discussion periods and study groups, paying particular attention to the detection of bias, gaps and inconsistencies; - assemble, first hand, a personal body of knowledge through the investigation of an aspect of resource utilisation in the local environment, using a variety of sources such as documents, maps and numerical data.
15.5 The following skills should be cultivated:-
- critical evaluation of data; - communication of the conclusions in a coherent and purposeful form.
15.6 If natural economy is to be organised as a classroom curriculum the relationships between the curriculum and the examination should be established along the lines outlined in Fig. 13.
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Fig. 13 Relationships between curriculum and examination
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NATURAL ECONOMY: MANAGING LOCAL PRODUCTION AND ITS ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Every knowledge may be fitly said, besides the profundity (which is the truth and substance of it, that makes it solid) to have a longitude and a latitude: accounting the latitude towards other sciences and the longitude towards action; that is from the greatest generality to the most particular precept. The one giveth rule how far one knowledge ought to intermeddle within the province of another, the other giveth rule unto what degree of particularity a knowledge should descend. (Francis Bacon, 1605)
1 Definition of Natural Economy
1.1 Knowledge about world development is defined by two subjects, 'political economy' and 'natural economy':-
- political economy describes the development of human communities as an interaction between social power and the production of wealth;
- natural economy describes the development of human communities as an interaction between natural resources and the production of goods and services.
1.2 Both subjects complement each other, defining world development as a dynamic relationship whereby:-
- natural resources are first selected; - investments in labour and capital made; - the resources are then processed to provide goods and services; - these products meet people's needs and wants; - the availability of goods and services stimulates a demand for more natural resources.
1.3 In the above context, natural economy is an holistic knowledge system which embraces anthropology, history, geography, agriculture, biology, geology, and economics. It defines the ways in which human cultures draw upon natural resources, both traditionally, and in the context of modern industrialism, where mass-production methods are developed to raise crops and manufacture goods and transport them to consumers. From this viewpoint the aim is to encourage people as consumers to think about the ways in which they may contribute to the rational utilisation of natural resources, and at the same time appreciate that our modern wants can only be satisfied from an economic base of trading and industrialism. The issues of conservation are centred on where this base-line should be set. In this sense natural economy is the first attempt to produce a well defined body of knowledge which places conservation alongside industrialism with equal weight.
1.4 Most of the world's production systems are now industrialised, and in this connection, natural economy sets the gains to human well-being through industrialism against nature's losses. In this sense it deals with our responsibility as consumers to organise our various social uses of nature alongside industrialisation to sustain the full range of nature's benefits for our total well-being. At the same time it makes it clear
Contents p 108 Edition June 1, 2008 the costs of conservation have to looked upon as debits from commercial profits and/or as the lowering of individual material horizons.
1.5 An important aspect of natural economy is that there is an emphasis on cross- culture comparisons. Using a standard conceptual framework, learners will be able to make global assessments of different attitudes towards natural resources in relation to common physical, biological and non-material needs. At regional levels, political boundaries often bear no relationship to biogeographic zones and 'biological corridors', and in this respect natural economy can place local environmental problems in an international setting. This is particularly important because major conflicts in world development arise because different attitudes towards the use of environment are generated through different cultural patterns.
1.6 Natural economy is an integrated set of ideas from many subjects which brings the challenges of world development to the centre of the education system. This cross-subject viewpoint stresses that our impact on natural resources is inextricably bound up with business and consumerism. It therefore brings industry and business in from the sidelines. It provides many windows to the integrated study of the problems, issues and challenges of world development in the context of the supply of natural resources. As a local educational experience it gives individuals a framework to define levels of wealth creation in their neighbourhood that are compatible with the sustainable use of air, land, and water, and their dependent ecosystems.
1.7 In the widest perspective, there are routes into natural economy from ;"social history", which is largely an expression of past natural economy, and "population dynamics", which is strongly influenced by the local natural economy, in turn, and has a strong influence on 'political economy'.
2 The Knowledge Maps
2.1 Natural economy is a navigation system to voyage the relationships between people and the processes they invent to use local natural resources for survival, social cohesion, and to enhance their lifestyle (Fig 1). It is therefore a subject for studying all aspects of world development within a well-defined body of subject matter. It is more cohesive than environmental studies, and more comprehensive than environmental science. These are the only other divisions of the school syllabus that have been created to contain knowledge about the impact of people on the environment, and both have failed to gain the academic status of 'hard' and 'cohesive' subjects. Since natural economy was first created as an examinable subject in the International GCSE of the University of Cambridge Local Examination Syndicate, it has been taken up by many countries as the most appropriate way of encouraging the rigouorous study of world development.
2.2 It is a model of the development and spread of culture that focuses on decisions of families to settle and use land for certain kinds of production. These decisions are specific to certain times and places, involving the learning of skills and technologies to make a living by processing local materials and energy flows derived from air, soils. and water.
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2.3 Particular local cultural models are defined in terms of:-
- the resource base providing food, energy and materials; - the processing skills for getting food, and crafting objects and making constructions; - the cultural area and its communication networks; - the family and group customs.
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Fig 1 Natural economy as a dynamic model of world development
2.4 In this sense, natural economy is an educational development of the Sauer/Harvey 1963-67 model of principles that govern the human organisation of space, and the management of natural resources for their sustainable use (Fig 2). The dark pathway represents the primary sequence of stages in human economic development. The model can also be used to map out the native pre-industrial, non-monetary economies from which there are historical lessons to be learned about living in ecological harmony with the local resource base.
Fig 2 A synoptic model of the development and spread of human culture through the circuit of capitalism which varies temporally and sectorially
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2.5 Primary examples of traditional monetary economies illustrating a community's dependence on particular natural resources, are fisheries, pastoralism and woodcraft. These may be taken as natural analogue models of world development because:
- they represent the development of ancient cultural uses of natural resources that are becoming extinct in the modern world; - they each express a management system, based on ecological cycles and climatic fluctuations, with yields that have to support the linear processes of human economic growth; - they have a modern background of applied research into the mass cropping and competitive use of natural resources; - they involve the continuous cropping of ecosystems that are losing diversity and are under threat from industrialisation; - they allow global spatial comparisons to be made in all their dimensions.
2.6 Examples of newer industrial economies, which tap primeval materials and energy flows, and have a more diffuse social base, are oil refining and water management.
3 Relationship of natural economy to consumermatics
3.1 The study of people as consumers of natural resources is central to modern education. The multi dimensional issues raised, and cross disciplinary information required, presents great problems in gathering, updating and local customising. Natural economy is the subset of consumermatics which defines the economic and technical management of natural resources to satisfy our needs and wants (Fig 3). The natural economy information cluster connects up concepts for a holistic view of world development , defining routes from local resources to a range of processes and products.
Fig 3 A knowlege map of consumermatics illustrating the position of natural economy
3.2 The background knowledge to natural economy defines the origins of our physical and biological resources, and the socio-biological principles which govern the size of the human population.
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3.3 Natural economy itself has three major divisions:-
- agrarianism deals with the domestication of wildlife for agricultural production; - industrialism deals with the mass production of goods and services; - ethnoecology deals with the management of seminatural ecosystems for survival, economic well-being, spiritual well-being and scientific knowledge.
4 Natural Economy and the Monetary Economy
4.1 Natural economy is the human behavioural superstructure that governs the use of 'natural', or day to day local living space. People and space are integrated through a cultural emphasis on production systems which use locally developed, idiosyncratic symbols, facilities and tools. In contrast, the monetary economy operates in the global space of national and international politics, which emphasises the standardised methods of mass production, commercialism and monetary flows. We need subjects to distinguish concepts that define the cultural ordering of space (the subject of natural economy) from those that define the monetary ordering of space (the subject of economics), because the cultural and economic maps cannot always be superimposed. Also, cultural heritage, which is the expressions of natural economies of the past, is a local social stabilising force that predates the world economy.
4.2 In its historical perspective, natural economy defines the development of small communities from their preindustrial situation. This involved a transition from small economic units dependent upon families, to the international arena of very large communities dependent on workers grouped in factories and offices engaged in methods of mass production for trade. The first natural economies were forged with primeval tools and technologies of localised families and tribes which tapped natural resources to supply their limited needs. This produced the first local impacts which turned 'ecosystems' into 'landscapes'. Natural economy is now expressed visually in the dynamic biophysical mosaic of the complex landscapes produced by abstraction of natural resources by past and present developments of local economies.
4.3 Trade is the historical starting point from which people move from the natural economy of self-sufficiency towards industrial methods of mass production. Through trade, there is a corresponding move from the satisfaction of basic needs to the search for raw materials, goods, and services to satisfy the wants of a better lifestyle. Trade is also the simplest pedagogical route to teach natural economy. Pathways are traced, from the natural resources used, to the goods and services traded to satisfy a need or want. In the other direction, goods we purchase from other cultures can be traced to the raw materials needed to sustain production of the things we buy. These viewpoints define the consumer networks to which we belong and all the natural resources that maintain our lifestyle. Thus, we can discuss the natural economy of the fur trade, the oil industry, and the conservation of tropical rainforests, within a common set of physical, biological, social and economic principles. Therefore, natural economy is a knowledge system that presents, trade, industry and
Contents p 114 Edition June 1, 2008 conservation, the major driving forces of our present and future cultural development, within the same knowledge framework, all with equal emphasis.
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5 Different Kinds of Natural Economy
5.1 According to type and level of input, three kinds of natural economy may be defined as:-
- ethnoecology; - industrial cropping; - and manufacturing industry.
5.2 Ethnoecology includes all human uses of natural resources which exploit semi- natural self-renewal systems, such as pastoralism, and the shifting systems of agriculture combined with hunting and gathering. It is probably true to say that most examples of ethnoecology are historical, since they were a feature of early human social evolution. The modern equivalent of traditional low input survival systems is the conservation movement, which manages the environment as a source of the goods classed as wildlife and heritage. The emphasis on obtaining natural resources for human survival has shifted to ensure the preservation of valued features of the environment for education, contemplation and scientific research. Goods made available by the conservation business are habitats, rare species, and scenic beauty.
5.3 Industrial cropping deals with all technical aspects of the intensive use of land and water for crop production, and also includes the interrelated principles of human settlement and rural economics.
5.4 Manufacturing industry and the business methods required to support mass- production, define the intensive use of materials and energy to produce capital and consumer goods. Whether in cottage or factory the essence of industrialism is the division of a production system into small segments. Each worker controls a particular process that makes a relatively small contribution to the finished product. However, 'industry' is no longer just a matter of factory production lines, and in terms of the organisation for cost-effective use of resources, we rightly talk about the 'agricultural industry' and the 'tourist industry'. Also, industrial methods and products are now used in conservation, so we can talk about the conservation business. This makes industrialisation all pervasive and there is no place in the world free of its environmental and social impacts.
5.5 The economising techniques of industrialism, whether in factory, farm, forest, fishing fleet or city office, are:-
- intensive research; - financial capital; - sources of cheap power; - invention of machines for specialised jobs,; - education and training for jobs, rather than crafts, among the working population; - and construction of infrastructures of transport and communication for the rapid circulation of large numbers of people, goods and ideas.
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These outcomes of technological invention have produced the typical features of the modern commercial world.
5.6 The knowledge system in Fig 4 represents the natural economy of industrialism; a particular social group (1) makes use of human inventiveness (2) to harness local resources (2); a industrial process is created (3) for managing materials (4) and energy (4) in production systems (5) to create a saleable product (6); production results in environmental changes, giving rise to local or global concerns (7). The network in Fig 4 is both a conceptual map, a flow diagram and an historical sequence.
Fig 4 The natural economy of industrialism
5.7 Industrial development depends on trade. In sequence, this is presented from the products (1) of industrialism are traded as goods are traded (2) to support commercialism (3) which generates finance (4). Finance is one of four essential inputs to industrialism, the others being natural resources, invention and social organisation. Some of the profit from trade is invested in order to adopt inventions to improve existing products, and make them more competitive in the market place, and to produce new ones. This dynamic model of industrialism based on commercialism is presented in Fig 5. The arrows show the cycle of human behaviour, which links ideas, natural resources, and finance, that has sustained world development through industrialism since the17th century.
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Fig 5 Knowledge net connecting industrialism with commercialism
6 Different Social Production Systems
6.1 Scientifically, natural economy delineates the inventions and technologies by which the Earth's biophysical economies are drawn into the human economy to generate wealth. The creation of wealth allows financial investment in the exploitation of more natural resources. This in turn increases wealth still further. World development has so far proceeded on this basis. It is an example of positive feedback because use of natural resources stimulates their increased use. In other words, the more effective management of flows of natural resources into the human economy creates a demand for the consumption of ever more and more natural resources.
6.2 This positive feedback system of consumerism is illustrated in the development of two kinds of social groups which drive the economic transformation of materials and energy flows into goods and services (Fig 6).
6.3 Modern production systems are characteristic of 'constructive groups' who make a landscape of fields, buildings, roads, and factories to serve their economic aspirations. They populate a given area beyond the limits of its local natural productivity and import goods and services from elsewhere, thereby destroying its ecosystems. In contrast, ancient production systems are characteristic of 'inscribed groups', who organise their society for the sustained exploitation of local natural resources. They make little impact on the local ecosystems which provide them with food and shelter. The people are inscribed, or embedded, into local ecosystems by being linked to the productivity of local biophysical flows. The flows of materials and energy through these links limit the number of people who can live in a given area and exist on the supply of its local resources.
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Fig 6 Production systems defined in terms of the cultural bonds between the community and its local natural resources.
6.4 The constructive group system presented in Fig 7 is an expansion of that already discussed in relation to Fig 3. It is driven by the widespread desire to generate wealth. Industrial wealth capitalises the application of new ideas, technological inventions, and mass advertising, to increase the output of cheaper products, and boost demand for the 'new and better'.
Fig 7 The economic system of industrialism and agrarianism
6.5 Now that agriculture and forestry, the two modern dominant expressions of agrarianism, have developed in this direction, 'industrialism' and 'agrarianism' are interchangeable concepts in Fig 7. The main difference between a map of manufacturing
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6.6 The natural economy of inscribed groups involves each production unit taking in and processing commodities right up to the point where they are ready for the consumer as final products. The goods of these finished- product economies are intended for permanent or terminal use in the form in which they are acquired. They are not for incorporation by other producers into more developed and complex products, and are not subject to further exchange. Strong folk arts and traditional crafts are a feature of consumer economies.
6.7 In contrast to the economies of inscribed groups, the systems of constructive groups express part-product economies. They are organised to make parts which are assembled by others. They effect a transfer of goods from one producer to another in unfinished form. The consumer is at the end of a long line of producers, each of whom has added something to increase the value of the final goods. Industrialism and agrarianism are examples of production systems of constructive groups (Fig 8). Agrarianism is now dominated by the mass production of crops through agriculture and plantation forestry, which are sold on for others to 'add value'.
Fig 8 Production systems of constructive groups
6.8 World development has progressed by the 'finished-product' approach of craft work giving way to 'part-product' orientated mass production piece-work systems. Mass production is the characteristic of industrialism. The inputs of natural resources are managed to supply markets and exchanges with goods and services to meet demands of wage-earning urban peoples who now dominate population structure throughout the world.
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7 Ethnoecology and Ecomenes
7.1 Modern manufacturing industry and agriculture are the production systems of constructive groups. They are organised in production lines and the conservation aspect of self-sufficiency characteristic of early inscribed consumer economies in town and countryside has virtually disappeared. The production systems of ancient preindustrial inscribed groups bound ethnic development to the local ecology. Ethnoecology is the subject for studying these groups, which are characterised as being either completely, or mainly, self sufficient.
7.2 For inscribed groups bound to a particular ecological flow of natural resources, yet operating a market economy, the term ecomene was coined by early French geographers. An example of an ecomene is a19th century European coastal community based on the sustained exploitation of a local fish stock. An ecomene is a unique combination of people, topography, ideas, skills and capital. The term is still useful today. Various criteria may be used to define a particular ecomene- language, customs or culture, ideology or religion. Not all these are applicable in every case, but a permanent essential character of an ecomene is the personal recognition of each individual that they belong to a group different from others. They either consume the fruits of their labours themselves, or trade them for immediate use by other groups.
8 The Conservation Culture
8.1 Ethnoecology is, in the main, the study of groups that are now extinct, and there are few examples of ecomenes in our uniform industrial world. The modern expressions of inscribed cultures are the conservation groups and organisations which define the urban 'green culture’. Conservationists insert the existence value of nature into their industrial economic systems in order to sustain the supply of certain features of the environment, the enjoyment of which is an important aspect of their lifestyle. By their actions they impose constraints on the use of natural resources for manufactured goods to satisfy their spiritual needs from contact with 'wild nature' and 'scenic beauty'.
8.2 In the context of natural economy, conservation is really an up to date expression of the behaviours which characterised early inscribed cultures whose needs were sustained by cropping self-renewing seminatural ecosystems. The 'Greens' may therefore be viewed as contemporary expressions of the old inscribed cultures. Indeed, many nature reserves can only be maintained by adopting the ancient, uneconomic agrarian production systems which were abandoned in the face of the economic gains to be had from adopting mass production. Conservationists attempt to preserve wildlife and heritage, and place a monetary value on seminatural ecosystems for the various classes of 'natural goods' we can derive from them. For this purpose, individuals, voluntary groups and government agencies promote the conservation of natural resources using some of the wealth of a global mass production economy. The relationships between the different aspects of the production systems of inscribed groups, ancient and modern, are presented in Fig 9.
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Fig 9 Production systems of inscribed groups.
9 Management Systems
9.1 Living systems are capable of maintaining viability whilst responding to a great diversity of inputs from the environment. This is achieved by coordination systems, such as nerves and hormones. These call up, for each input, the genetic specifications for the appropriate cellular, physiological, or behavioural setting, and then activate systems to meet the specification. We discuss this in terms of the genes 'programming' these goal-seeking processes.
9.2 Behavioural responses are of particular interest because they have evolved to form the cultural basis for our utilisation of natural resources. In particular, we are able to set social specifications based on our needs and wants. These specifications stimulate inventions to turn natural resources into products. Management of industrial processes to meet customer specifications is thus a human expression of ubiquitous behavioural systems of control and regulation. Managers and workers are part of every industrial system, and its social setting, making behavioural responses as the internal events produce changes in the production process.
9.3 Wherever found, and at whatever level of organisation, control and regulation has the following components:-
- knowledge of the range of viability (the target or specification) for each of the vital internal conditions;
- a process for monitoring the vital conditions;
- a process for comparing current conditions to the specification;
- a process for responding to deviations of conditions from the specification.
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9.4 The response process can be divided into two parts:
- a decision process' for deciding what to do about any deviations between conditions and targets that may arise when additions are made to the system;
- and an 'action process', for translating the decision into an action.
9.5 These causal relationships are summarised in the 'circular' diagram Fig 10 (A). They have been expressed more precisely as a closed loop in Fig 10 (B). This is the simplest structure capable of maintaining a specification. It enables a system to:
- monitor its internal conditions;
- compare them to its goals for these conditions;
- then to initiate corrective actions when deviations arise.
9.6 Remove any one of these three processes and the system will not be viable. The diagram will serve to explain the generation of body heat to maintain the evolutionary specification for a constant body temperature in humans. It will serve as the operational diagram for the adjustments in the chemistry of blast-furnace iron to turn it into steel to meet a customers specification of the properties required. It will also serve to accommodate the changes in social and investment policy required to stabilise a fishing community that no longer has unlimited access to fish stocks.
9.7 In other words, this unity in the principles of control and regulation also provides a unifying educational focus for the study of systems management across disciplines as diverse as public health, chemistry and history.
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Fig 10 A closed loop structure for meeting a specification
9.8 Conservation management is a response to the problems, issues and challenges of natural resource utilisation. It may be visualised as the negative feedback regulator of consumerism activated by the values people place on the resources (Fig 11).
9.2 People value stocks of natural resources whch are attached to particular supplies of materials and energy that provide 'goods' in the following ways:-
- 'user values', or 'user benefits', derive from the actual use of the stocks, whether for survival or pleasure.
- other kinds of values are expressed through options to use the stocks, and 'optional values' are the values of natural resources as potential benefits for future use.
- the third contribution to the economic value of the environment is the existence value of one or more of its elements; 'existence values' are intrinsic and embedded in the actual elements, and are unconnected with their actual or future use; they have been equated with a conservation ethic; this ethic embraces our duty to sentient beings, and ecosystems, and our concern for future generations.
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Fig 11 A closed-loop conservation model of natural economy
10 Sustainable Economic Development
10.1 The conservation movement developed as a response to local perceptions that some features, upon which members of the local user-community place a value, were being destroyed or eroded through the economic transformation of a local resource flow. Until the last decade, care for the environment was expressed mainly in the context of managing local landscapes for their aesthetic value and nature reserves because of their rare species. The notion that global conservation of all natural resources should go hand in hand with industrial development has recently taken on a new urgency. It has become apparent that renewable resources are being exploited beyond recovery, and conservation can no longer be seen as peripheral to our quest for social and economic welfare.
Fig 12 Environmental care activated by local perception of landscape and promoted by the use of wealth from the economic transformation of natural resources.
10.2 A global strategy for conservation based on the view that development depends on conservation, and that conservation depends equally upon development, was promoted by
Contents p 125 Edition June 1, 2008 the United Nations Environment Programme in the late 1970s. The strategy aims to advance the achievement of sustainable development through the conservation of natural resources linked with economic growth. Now, after the Rio Environment Summit, nations that were signatories to it's Agenda 21 and Biodiversity Convention, are creating their action plans for sustainable development. All these conservation responses, local and global, must take place through the application of designs, plans, regulations, or social pressure. The responders may be governments public agencies, individuals, voluntary bodies, and the private sector. Every conservation programme requires some form of management/ monitoring system, and special skills and professions to implement it. Environmental care in this sense depends on industrialism because salaries of the professional staff have to be paid for directly or indirectly (e.g. profits forgone) from the wealth generated by those countries operating profitable economies (Fig 12). This conceptual structure of a world conservation strategy embodies the option values and existence values of particular environmental features.
11 Focus On Landscapes
11.1 In summary, most primeval landscapes have been greatly altered by the development of interdependent human communities operating market economies. Development of the British economy has involved clearing the natural woodlands, reclaiming marshland, fen and moor, digging mines, making canals and railways and creating country houses and their parks. All these activities have made a contribution to the local character of the British countryside.
11.2 Natural economy is a conceptualised materials and energy flow model of natural resource utilisation which focuses on various features of these local landscapes. Landscape may be conceptualised as being made up of a physical geological layer, upon which is superimposed a biological layer. Human settlement and land use give rise to a third, constructed layer. Finally, there is the notional layer defined by the mental constructs we place upon the area in art, legend and literature. Each landscape element within each of these layers is either a window (or entry point) into a rural, urban or global model, where it is the biological or physical expression of one of the concepts of world development. Each concept is also a containment cell for the information and data which defines it. The self-assembly of these concepts by linking each one with others to which it is closely related, provides a multi-dimensional learning experience. The end result is the delineation of a personal body of knowledge about the management of local materials and energy flows.
11.3 This exercise has a practical value in that every feature of a landscape is the tip of a knowledge ‘iceberg’, with a base bumping against others. For successful management of local natural resources these icebergs have to be delineated for successful navigation through the multi-dimensional issues facing resource managers.
11.4 Landscape analysis is promoted as a methodology for local 'action education'. The aim is to put the local environment under a microscope with the aim of defining a conceptualised local information cluster (CLIC) of objects, processes, systems and issues that define relationships between social organisation and the local biophysical resources required for sustainable development.
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12 The Historical Dimension
12.1 Human development is an ongoing historical process and each hexagon array has a past, a present and a future Fig 13. Connections between nets give a fourth historical dimension to the knowledge system.
Fig 13 Knowledge nets for studying the past, present and future natural economy of a community: the temporal dimension
12.2 Natural economy is a conceptual structure for school computers to encourage learning and thinking about the relationships between economies and resources. This knowledge system comprises a set of ideational scaffolds, or information clusters, for navigating through the various ways that communities process their natural resources and market, or exchange, the products made from them. These clusters are assembled using a simple network of interlocking hexagons; each hex represents an important concept and is placed adjacent to other concepts to which it is closely related. Arrows connecting the cells indicate logical learning pathways. On a computer screen, these clusters represent a menu or navigation system, the cells representing windows into deeper information about the concept it contains. They are the 'conceptual filing system' for data and information.
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12.3 The following information clusters illustrate the basic concepts of natural economy in their historical context
Cluster 1: Human societies belong to one of two groups according to the kind of social organisation that has developed to process natural resources into products (Fig 14).
13 The Information Clusters
Fig 14 Cluster 1
The natural economy of a particular social organisation depends on the way in which natural resources are perceived and used. The natural economy of an 'inscribed group', makes a minimal local impact on their landscape. In contrast the natural economy of a 'constructive group', totally changes their landscape, obliterating most of its primeval biological features. Inscribed groups live in harmony with their natural resources, whereas constructive groups populated an area beyond the limits of the local natural productivity, destroying its ecosystems. World development is driven by the natural economy of constructive groups.
13.1 Cluster 2 The production systems of inscribed groups are sustainable ethnic relationships with local ecosystems: constructive groups replace local ecosystems with production systems of industrial cropping and/or manufacturing industry in cottage or factory (Fig 15).
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Inscribed groups 'cut-lightly' into their local ecosystems, which they manage for sustained output, promoting the biological processes of self-renewal. The study of the natural economy of inscribed groups, which historically represent early stages of human development, is defined as "ethnoecology".
The natural economy of constructive groups falls broadly into two categories of "industrial cropping" and "manufacturing industry".
Industrial cropping defines all aspects of natural resource utilisation for the production of crops, livestock and the harvesting of timber and fish from ecosystems.
Industrialism is the mechanised organisation of natural resources for the production of commodities and services for mass markets, and applies to the production systems of all constructive groups.
Cottage industrialism is based on the rural development of family crafts for an urban market;
Factory industrialism involves the local concentration of natural resources and capital for the intensive management of materials and energy by urban populations.
Fig 15 Cluster 2
13.2 Cluster 3 Inscribed groups manage the local evironment for sustainable yields: traditional expressions of ethnoecology are classed as 'ecomenes', which are either
Contents p 130 Edition June 1, 2008 settled communities, exploiting a relatively large local self-renewing resource, or nomadic, migrating between relatively small self-renewing resources (Fig 16).
Inscribed groups may be defined as part of their environment, being 'inscribed' into its ecology which limits the number of people who can partake of its natural resources. The socioeconomic focus of an inscribed group is called an "ecomene". An ecomene is a unique combination of people, topography, ideas, skills and capital for the sustained exploitation of local biological resources. Various criteria may be used to distinguish an ecomene - language, customs, or culture, ideology or religion. Not all these are applicable in every case, but a permanent essential character of an ecomene is the personal recognition of each individual that they belong to a group different from others.
An example of a settled ecomene is a maritime community socially clustered at a coastal site where by developing appropriate skills and implements it is able to bring fish stocks within reach of its families.
Sheep herders are and example of a nomadic ecomene. They migrate regularly through an area, harvesting and cropping its natural resources which are thinly spread. Social clustering in permanent settlements are not a feature of this way of life.
Fig 16 Cluster 3
Ecomenes, both settled and nomadic, are defined in terms of their geographical isolation and stability. Where they exist today, ecomenes trend to be relicts of old ways of life that were largely self sufficient.
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Nowadays, inscribed groups have emerged to pursue the broad aim of environmental protection as voluntary bodies and government agencies. Their activities define the natural economy of conservation.
This modern aspect of ethnoecology within an industrialised society involves the local protection and management of ecosystems, minimum impact production systems, beautiful landscapes, and the historical remains of old systems of natural resource utilisation.
The aims of environmental protection are not to ensure the social survival of an inscribed group, but to maintain a particular environmental feature for its beauty, amenity value, spiritual significance or scientific importance.
Because conservation is involved with protecting features which have no direct monetary value as natural resources for human development, their conservation value has to be incorporated into the an economic system using special weightings in the local environmental 'profit and loss account'. The formulation of environmental accountancy is known as "ecological economics".
Fig 17 Cluster 4
13.3 Cluster 4 Agrarianism is an ancient way of life associated with the development of constructive groups arising from inscribed groups; as expressed in modern farming it has virtually destroyed the terrestrial ecosystems on which the iscribed groups depended (Fig 17)
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Industrial cropping is based on the division of land and water by constructive groups to make soil, and water, available to produce field crops, and to facilitate harvesting of seminatural vegetation, and wild animal populations to yield food biomass. As practiced in forestry, and sea and lake fishing, industrialised biomass cropping has led to harvesting exceeding the natural regenerative capacity of the stock. Globally, the production of plant and animal field crops is the dominant type of industrial cropping and it has resulted in the massive loss of the the natural vegetation from all zones.
Land compartmentation is an integral part of social clustering in permanent settlements of farm and village.
The intake of land, water and biomass, for agriculture leads to the loss of natural resources which is almost total for the impact of modern industrialised agrarianism.
The mass production of crops and battery livestock alters the physical environment through soil erosion and soil compaction. Rural pollution is caused by the intensive use of fertiliser and pesticides, which reduce wildlife diversity and pose serious threats to public health. The large scale intake of primeval forest produces local, and possibly global, changes in climate by influencing the water cycle. In mountainous regions, deforestation also contributes to siltation of rivers and lakes and flash flooding.
13.4 Cluster 5 The effects of industrialised constructive groups goes beyond the immediate impact on the natural resources used for production; the necessary transport infrastructure occupies large areas of land and urbanised communities take up ever more space for housing; the wildlife in what remains of primeval ecosystems has to compete with our leisure activities (Fig 18).
Industrialism is defined as an organisation of society characterised by a mechanised manufacturing industry. An industrial organisation is a response to the the following conditions:-
- presence of customers and unsatisfied markets for goods; - a supply of would-be workers to operate machines to make the goods; - an abundance of material and financial resources to take up new ideas of production for a mass-market.
From the earliest ages of mankind, families, (men women, and children) have conducted certain industries in the home. This kind of home production system, described as 'cottage industrialism', increased in its variety and complication of home manufactures during the latter part of the 17th and early 18th centuries. The sudden decay of cottage industries coincided with the growth of factory industrialism as a more efficient way of producing for a mass market in the closing years of the 18th century.
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As a process, industrialism involves the bringing together of energy and materials in a production system, which is managed through appropriate training and factory discipline for the large-scale manufacture of goods. Factory production requires the elaboration of adequate infrastructure for gathering resources, distributing of goods to distant markets, and finding new markets.
Urbanisation describes the flow of an increasing proportion of rural dwellers into growing manufacturing centres. The building of factory sites and dwelling places for workers results in a loss of natural resources as more and more land is set aside for industrial development.
The increased prosperity and reduced hours of work that result from industrial development provide time and savings for leisure activities expressed in sport, recreation and holiday tourism. Provisions for increased spending on leisure by the industrially developed countries are now resulting in the 'industrialisation' of the undeveloped parts of the world.
Fig 18 Cluster 5
The use of raw materials and energy in manufacturing produces a variety of waste materials. Some of these may be classed as by-products, which may be used as raw materials in other production systems. True wastes either accumulate at the factory site, or have to be transported as solids and drainage water for dumping, often with special treatment to minimise ecological and public health problems. To combat the growing impact of industrialism on local and global environments a special area of
Contents p 134 Edition June 1, 2008 interdiscipinary knowledge described as 'industrial ecology' has emerged. This deals with environmental regulations for planning new industries and laws and procedures for controlling the environmental impact of existing ones. Industrial ecology is firmly linked with the more general ecological principles and methods of environmental protection.
13.5 Cluster 6 Two kinds of human production can be defined as those that support communal self-sufficiency and those that produce a personal surplus; social history defines the replacement of the first type by the second, which was accelerated by the mechanisation of production, and the shift towards a free market in land and labour and the investment of capital in marketing and international trade (Fig 19).
World development has taken place by the replacement of the natural economy of 'communal self-sufficiency' by the natural economy of 'personal surplus'.
Settled ecomenes and feudal agrarianism were characterised by there being an intimate connection between the people's work and their daily needs. Apart from the requirement for the mimimum exhange of special products like salt and iron these societies were entirely self-sufficient. This type of natural economy lasted as long as the object of each family was to raise food for their own household, rather than for the market. It combined the advantages of individual labour based on family crafts bound to a stable community structure. In the system of feudal agrarianism the democracy of peasant cultivators was maintained by the power and legal rights of their lord to whom they represented a source of servile labour.
Fig 19 Cluster 6
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The change from a feudal natural economy to one where local natural resources were turned into a personal surplus involved:-
- the replacement of servile labour by wage labour; - the availability of land for lease or purchase by peasants who had bought their freedom from servitude; - the mechanisation of production.
The use of money for all these developments capitalised agriculture and crafts to supply the needs of a growing urban population. The increasing use of money as a medium of exchange itself tended to break up relationships based on tradition and custom, and stimulated commercial marketing and international trade.
13.6 Cluster 7 This is a summary of the preceding clusters and provides a menu for customising local information about a particular community and its relationships with its local natural resources, and/or, production systems (Fig 20).
Fig 20 Cluster 7
13.7 In summary, transition from forced services to money rents, and the spread of a money economy, coincided with expansion of trade and craft-based industry in the country towns and ports. Together they stimulated capitalist farming. Under subsistence farming, people grew the kinds and quantities of foods which their own needs demanded. Under capitalism, the use to which land is put depends on the possibilities of the market. In England this change took about 400 years to become clearly evident, from about the beginning of the 12th century to the end of the end of the 15th century.
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13.8 The trend has continued and is now world wide, with increased emphasis on the delivery to the everyday life of people applications of new sciences embodied in new business units. The creation of these units involves economic innovations with new forms of internal and external organisation; financial, commercial, and industrial.
13.9 The impacts of industiralised processing natural resources and the intensive use of the environment for tourism and recreation are the end-points of consumerism that require management for sustainability (Fig 21).
Fig 21 End points of consumerism that require management for sustainable development
14 Origins of natural resources
Cluster 8 Wise use of natural resources requires information about their origins, amounts and stability. The balance between production and utilisation of natural resources may be considered in relation to three notional economies; the planetary economy; the solar economy; and the animate economy (Fig 22). This cluster is outlined in bold. The net as a whole sets natural economy within the context of the total knowledge system of 'consumermatics', which is encompassed by all the hexes in Fig 21.
14.1 The planetary economy is defined by changes in physical resources which originated when the solar system and the Earth were created. These are now
Contents p 137 Edition June 1, 2008 expressed in the Earth's structural dynamics ( movements of continents, volcanic action, and the recycling of materials of the Earth's crust) and the direct and indirect effects of lunar and solar cycles on the land and oceans.
14.2 The solar economy is the balance between heat energy reaching the Earth and its reflection back into space. The interactions between the planetary and solar economies produce long term and short term changes in ocean currents, tides and the weather, which in turn govern rates of erosion of land and sedimentation in the seas.
14.3 The animate economy is driven by photosynthesis which is the ultimate source of all our biological resources, which come from other living things. The main concepts governing the supply of biological resources and the maintenance of biodiversity are:-
- the niches, which define the space and food allocated to different species by natural selection; - the ecosystems, which are communities of species linked by bonds of food and shelter;
• ecosystems have a structure, defined as groups of particular species and their spatial distribution;
• ecosystems have a dynamics, defined as;
-changes in the sizes of populations; -flows of nutrients and energy through food chains, -renewal cycles of bacteria, which release carbon and nutrients by decomposition.
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Fig 23 Cluster 8: the knowledge area of 'consumermatics'
14.4 Human use of natural resources is largely an interaction between climatic conditions and the biological productivity expressed locally through the local topography and soils.
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15 Examples of Expansion Nets
Fig 23 The animate economy
Fig. 25. Agrarianism.
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Fig 27 Cottage industrialism
Fig 28 Natural fisheries
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Fig 29 Extractive cultures
Fig 30 Human population dynamics
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Fig. 31. Crop production.
Fig. 32. Family economics.
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ETHNOECOLOGY: THE STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL CARE- CULTURES
"Curiosity therefore wants to know what kind of a rural society it was from which has descended the forlorn, patient, deferential field-worker of to-day. The men who knew thirteen hundred ways of telling you, you were a fool, and from whom Shakespeare quarried a thousand nuggets of speech; the men whose seasonal rituals and junketings, whose feasts and fairs and folk-lore echo to this day in the nursery; the men who tanned their own leather, built their own ploughs and wagons; wove their own clothing from flax and fleece, brewed their own beer, baked their own bread, cured their own bacon, built and thatched and decorated their own homesteads, with the art the moderns try to preserve in the old villages; practised the time-honoured crafts in their own parish; conducted their own government and made the very spoons and mugs from which they ate and drank so heartily- were these the ancestral stock of the slouching Victorian nondescript who pulled his cap as Lady Bountiful rode by in her brougham? " (H.J.Massingham: 1937).
1 Caring Behaviour
1.1 Village life; its unity and uniqueness, particularly as it was lived in Georgian Britain, is highly valued by the majority of British people. We like to read about it, and to see it portrayed in a variety of every-day objects from art reproductions, to pictures on biscuit boxes and Christmas cards. But there is no going back to the life of an 80 acre yeoman mixed-farmer who created the landscapes we like to see from the windows of our cars. The central issue of rural conservation in the developed world is to try to find incentives to keep farmers on the land to care for landscapes their forebears created, and which most urban people value for recreation. There is increasing agreement in the United Kingdom that production-support, which has destroyed the cultural and biological diversity of the countryside, has to be replaced by environment and social support. There is now a very important role for farmers in caring for the landscape where most of us feel at home; a role that taxpayers and consumers are willing to pay for, rather than to pump subsidies into a smaller and smaller population of farmers who use production payments to destroy the fabric of the countryside in the name of industrial efficiency.
1.2 In addition to a new type of farmer who cares for his landscape and his community, important players in the creation and maintenance of this new conservation culture are the government agencies and voluntary environmental protection societies. These are the modern 'landowners', 'bailiffs' and 'gamekeepers', who are managing wildlife and landscape, through taxes and voluntary subscriptions, for the enjoyment by the public at large. To integrate this modern expression of caring for the countryside with the urban culture which pays the bills, it is necessary to find ways of helping people in towns and cities to discover a place in the landscape. Only through this sense and pride of place will we all be able to become involved in the local planning and management that is necessary for everyone to become part of a global conservation culture actively involved in caring for their own patch.
1.3 Modern environmentalism has a long history, starting with the caring behaviours which were vital for the transition from hunters to settled farming communities.
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1.4 During their hunting and fishing phase, and later through animal husbandry, prehistoric human groups waxed and multiplied as they first preyed upon, and then domesticated, the animals in their environment. They used fire as a hunting aid, and so altered the plant cover over vast tracts of land. This impact became greatly accelerated when the flocks and herds increased. Woodlands gave way to grasslands; grasslands became deserts; and the plant kingdom felt the heavy hand of humankind.
1.5 Meanwhile plants of value began deliberately to be encouraged and from a variety of postulated origins, people began domesticating animals as well as plants— they became gardeners, pet-owners and producers of livestock and field crops. Their horticultural and agricultural activities all involved learning the art and science of growing things and caring for them. Progressively farmers improved their plants and animals by selective breeding, and increased yields by protecting them from pests and diseases. This caring behaviour not only changed the face of nature, but also the whole human pattern of living. Care for the environment developed throughout the world, but its most intensive expression was in villages of the tropics. The cultural details of the different expressions of these tribal, clan and group activities, built around care for those elements of the environment that kept people alive and comfortable, define the subject area of ethnoecology. The term was coined to describe the comparative study of interactions between human social systems and natural ecosystems by Conklin, who studied the cultural processes which transform nature into resources. He defined the knowledge area in "An ethnoecological approach to shifting agriculture" (Trans. N.Y. Acad. Sci. Ser. II, 17, 133-142, 1954).
1.6 Among tropical peoples in the tribal or village state of culture, the more intensive expressions of ethnoecology have taken, in the main, two forms:
- the cultivation of irrigated land, and - the planting of village groves and gardens.
The former depends upon the annual impounding of flood water in dyked streams and flats, or upon the building of terraces on slopes which can be irrigated with divertable water from higher ground.
1.7 The second chief form of permanent cultivation in the tropics, the village groves and gardens, offers the most clear cut example of ethnoecology as it was widespread before industrialisation. It is, in large measure, part primitive horticulture rather than agriculture, and developed where people had permanent habitation. Some semi- nomadic peoples move so often that they can have little in the way of horticulture. Others have permanent villages which have become transformed into groves of fruit trees, interspersed with small patches of other useful plants which are maintained regardless of the great labour of hand cultivation.
1.8 An old village site is a place that is constantly and unconsciously fertilised by people (partly through their domestic animals), for it is a centre of deposition of organic material drawn far and wide from the surrounding region. "Wastes" are not wasted, but their valuable fertiliser constituents turn up again and are transformed by beneficent nature into the form of fruits and vegetables. So a tropical village is often a medley of grove and garden, the products of which supplement a living gained from shifting or permanent agriculture, fishing, hunting, or any combination of these. The
Contents p 145 Edition June 1, 2008 most delightful tropical landscapes are those in which ancient village centres of industry, art, and religion, are integral with primitive horticulture and gardening, perhaps separated by a bamboo hedge from surrounding lands in permanent cultivation, around which the forest retains its proper place, regulating streamflow, preventing excessive erosion, yielding forest products, and affording sanctuary to the wild animals and plants. Special tree sanctuaries are retained at the edge of the village for their spiritual value A reasonable amount of grassland suffices for grazing of domestic animals. Tropical ethnoecology is just an extreme example of the way in which different rural societies throughout the world created their own cultural landscapes.
1.9 So it was that human evolution slipped rapidly into its present phase which we call social development. Cultural change has proceeded with accelerating speed during the last century, exploding into dominance as a result of the industrial revolution. Its consequences have been the destruction of cultural diversity through the adoption of standard methods of communication, organisation, and planning the exploitation of limited natural resources in the countryside and seas, to serve people who now live mostly in towns and cities.
2 Human Evolution And Environment
2.1 Human cultural evolution offers education the challenge of integrating consumermatics into the educational mainstream through the following three topics:-
- people as animals; - people as economic transformers of the global environment; - people as intelligent and social beings, aware of themselves and their responsibility to society.
2.2 These three aspects of our human species are often in conflict with each other, sometimes violently so. Conflicts have existed ever since tool-making, language , teaching, and learning became basic characteristics of the hominid line, but only in the last 50 years or so have they begun to reduce the options available for further social development.
2.3 Evolutionary guidelines for world development education which address these cultural conflicts can be stated briefly.
- the drastic alterations in the planetary environment that are underway, require research and education to guide an equally drastic reorganization of human standards and goals. Exploitation, expansion, and aggression must be replaced by conservation, population control, and tolerance.
- the urgency of the situation requires that cultural solutions be sought to support industrialism through education, by considering in addition to standards that are economic and technological, ethical standards of consumption that are strictly human in nature.
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- the basis for future human development must be the flexibility and diversity of cultural traits, comparable to the genetic flexibility and diversity that exist in non-human populations.
3 Importance of Cultural Evolution in Education
3.1 All the major crises we face are interrelated: the threat of nuclear conflict, the widening gap between rich and poor nations, the twin problems of overpopulation and exhaustion of food supplies, the exhaustion of energy resources, and the irremediable pollution of the earth's biosphere. They are the outcome, at least in part, of conflicts between the three aspects of humankind: the biological animal, the member of a purposeful society, and the transformer of the environment. They also stem from a philosophy of exploitation, expansion, and aggression, without which mankind could not have evolved modern civilization, but which must now be altered into a philosophy of stability, control, and commonality if human culture is to survive. To understand and solve these conflicts requires:-
- a shift in education from specialism to generalism; - a conceptual framework for lateral thinking; - a corresponding emphasis on individualised conceptual learning in schools and universities to take people across subject boundaries; - research into ways of getting children involved with local environmental management and planning.
3.2 The most crucial question of modern times is, what is evolution going to be like under the dominance of a human industrialised culture? We cannot answer this question by simple extrapolation from past events of biological evolution, as we could if humankind were just another biological species. It depends upon estimates of how extensive and significant the differences are between people and all other organisms that have inhabited the earth.
3.3 Evolution of species other than humans occurs by substitution of genes that are favorable in new environments for those that were of value in old environments. Birds, bats, and insects are fliers descended from ancestors who did not fly. To become fliers they had to evolve genetically for millions of years.
3.4 While all organisms adapt to their environments by changing their genes, we alone adapt mainly, though not exclusively, by creating a family-based home environment, through language and toolmaking, that suits our genes. In so doing, we have often abused the environment in which we live, and the abuse becomes more and more serious as the number of people increases.
3.5 The social evolution of human cognitive structures, on which both language and tool-making depend, are the foundations of the control of the environment by culture. We have become the most powerful flier of all, by constructing flying machines, not by reconstructing our genotype. Adaptations of the species by culture can be vastly more rapid than adaptation by genetic alterations. Changed genes can be transmitted only to children and other direct descendants, cultural changes can be passed regardless of genetic relationships. Gene substitution by selection usually takes many
Contents p 147 Edition June 1, 2008 generations; cultural changes can, in principle, be made within a generation. The parents and grandparents of the millions of workers throughout the world who now operate complex machines were peasants or farmers, tied to the soil they cultivated with the aid of relatively simple tools.
3.6 Two factors are largely responsible for this great speed of cultural change. First, cultural diffusion is far more rapid than gene flow, since it can affect an entire population in much less time than the course of a single generation. Second, the production of profound changes in the environment in a short time stimulates continued progress. The chain reactions that are released through interactions between culturally evolving societies, and the altered environments they generate, are far more rapid than those resulting from the genetic interactions between two kinds of animal or plant species during organic evolution. Future developments of telecommunications and computer assisted learning networks are already beginning to accelerate the speed of cultural change even further.
4 Education And Social Evolution
4.1 The most successful human societies contain a great variety of genotypes, from which training and education produce an even greater variety of phenotypes. Because of the flexibility and diversity of human nature, the continued improvement of society by progressive cultural change in many directions is an attainable goal. The key to progress is education, particularly that which moulds the character of the infant and the growing child. Intellectual leadership cannot be provided by any one of the many subject areas which have multiplied in the last 300 years. It requires a synthesis of the views of psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, philosophers, and others who are primarily interested in human behavior, as well as by evolutionary biologists. Only such an integration of knowledge can provide the important long-term view to help social leaders define the problems facing humankind, and search for the most practical solutions. In the five-million or so years of primate evolution the acute problems of coping with our effects on the global environment are only a few decades old. Human culture is now changing globally year by year and it is difficult to control this unprecedented rate of change.
4.2 One tool for determining what kinds of educational change are practical, and how they could be accomplished, is provided by analogies between cultural and biological evolution. Such analogies must emphasize both similarities and differences between the two kinds of change. The effectiveness of natural selection is based upon the richness and diversity of gene pools in populations. Human populations are equally rich and diverse with respect to cultural traits.
4.3 The improvement of society by cultural change must somehow build upon the richness and diversity of this ancient cultural pool of ethnoecology, analogous to the gene pools of animals and plants. The cultural pool consists of inventions, technical skills, constitutions, laws and customs, religious attributes, systems of educational and aesthetic achievements such as literature, music, painting, and sculpture. Differences between the cultural pools of nations or smaller communities correspond to differences in the gene pools of biological species.
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4.4 Just as mutations increase variation in gene pools, so new ideas and inventions transmitted through education can increase cultural pools. Individual traits of gene pools are transferred from one population to another by migration, crossing between individuals, and genetic recombination; cultural traits are transferred by cultural diffusion, which often includes migration of families and individuals. Phenotypic effects of genes that pass from one population into another group having a different adaptive norm are altered by acquiring different modifiers. So ideas and inventions, diffusing from one culture to another, increasingly by global telecommunication, acquire different properties when adjusted to suit the habits of the society they enter.
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5 Human Control Of Evolution
5.1 For the foreseeable future, biological evolution will be bound up intimately with the survival of humankind. Changing environments are important catalysts of evolutionary changes in global biodiversity. In particular, the extinction of species, appearance of new predators or sources of food, and changes in the abundance of other species are important evolutionary stimuli for most populations of animals and plants. During the past two thousand years such changes have been produced by the activity of mankind on a vastly greater scale than at any previous time in the earth's history. We can now add to this the uncertainies of the production of genetically engineered microbes, plants and animals. The main effect so far has been a reduction in biodiversity which is proceeding at an accelerated rate. An important message of the Rio Environmental Summit, the Biodiversity Convention, was that governments need to explore ways to slow the pace of biological change whilst still promoting policies to extend people's economic horizons.
5.2 It was pointed out in the last century by A. R. Wallace, that our distinctive form of adaptation is our ability to transform the environment to suit our needs. Increasingly, other species, particularly mammals, exist only because people wish to preserve them, or at least tolerate them. Environmental factors have been neutralized by our ability to control our environment.
5.3 In the future, biological and cultural evolution will remain inextricably bound together, as they have been during the past few thousand years. Moreover, the dominance of cultural over biological evolution as an agent of change for both populations and their environments, is bound to increase rather than diminish. This new dominance of human cultural evolution represents a change in the earth's history as drastic as, if not more than, any that has taken place on the earth since the appearance of cellular life.
5.4 Another serious conflict is between people as transformers of the environment on the one hand, and families as members of a community that must exist in harmony with the environment. The source of this conflict is not hard to identify. With modern tools and technology, an individual can easily do things that appear to relieve the hardships, suffering, and grief of his/her daily life for the present and immediate future; but estimates of the ultimate consequences of these actions are hard to make. Even when we know that the consequences of our actions may be disastrous in the far future, the majority of people are willing to risk this danger for the sake of immediate satisfaction. Even access to a supermarket as a weekly consumer can influence the lives of producers many thousands of miles away. The short-termism of decision making in short-lived democratic government does not help.
5.5 Cultural evolution can be characterized as the transformation of cultural pools in response to alterations of the cultural environment. Its nearest analogue in biological evolution is alteration in gene pools in response to changes in the living environment, i.e., co-evolution of predators and prey, flowers and pollinators, parasites and their hosts, etc. The analogy begins to break down when the forces that determine change and direction are considered. Natural selection based upon differential reproduction has no counterpart in cultural evolution. To a certain extent, cultural pools can be
Contents p 150 Edition June 1, 2008 altered by conscious selection or rejection of new inventions or customs. On the other hand, the conscious planning and foresight that can guide cultural evolution into new channels has no counterpart in organic evolution. That is why planning to conserve the elements of the environment which are of value for the sustainable flow of natural resources for human use is the most important practical route to the future for the human population.
6 Conservation As A Cultural Trait
6.1 The national UK strategy for nature conservation was formally prescribed in 1947 with the publication of the Government White Papers 'Conservation of nature in England and Wales' and 'National Parks and the conservation of nature in Scotland'. These documents presented the presentation of a basic philosophy which is still guiding the practice of nature conservation. They stated that conservation should centre around safeguarding a fairly large number of key areas which adequately represented all major types of natural and semi-naltural vegetation. These areas should include their characteristic assemblage of plants and animals, and habitat conditions, of climate, topography, rocks, soils, and influences of domestic animals and people. The latter human factor is a very important aspect of British conservation management. The history of intensive land-use has left a legacy of wild nature and landscapes that have to be preserved, through managing a series of systems that have come into existence in dynamic equilibrium with the day to day life of families and communities. Some of these systems have their orgins in prehistoric patterns of land- use of the first cultivators of the uplands; but for the most part they may be said to represent the ethnoecology of land-use as it was about 300 years ago- a pattern of small farming communities cropping small hedged fields with scattered patches of woodland, ponds and drainage ditches. In attempting to preserve these elements of a culture that no longer exists conservationists are themselves part of a modern culture which partakes of these valued features for recreation, education or contemplation.
6.2 Conservation of wildlife and landscape is now entering a stage of professional development. This is based on the notion that environmental management constitutes a distinct type of human behaviour concerned with controlling local social systems of family and community which make a living from the environment. Environmental management is a continuous process and part of a system of people and nature. It works by seeking to devise appropriate ways of controlling the system concerned by regulations and incentives, and then, through feedback from monitoring the effects, to see how far the controls have been effective, or how far they need subsequent modification. The central proposition of environmental management is that many phenomena- whether they are social, economic, biological or physical in character - can be practically viewed as complex interacting cultural systems consisting of people, their livelihoods, and those who delight in nature. That is to say the different players have to be separated and the interactions between them analysed. Then, by introducing appropriate control mechanisms, the behaviour of the human and non- human elements can be altered in specific ways to achieve certain objectives on the part of the manager.
6.3 To manage any system it is necessary to understand the operation of the system as a whole (though not necessarily in complete detail throughout) in order to manage it
Contents p 151 Edition June 1, 2008 effectively; unless this is done, actions taken to control one part of the system may have completely unexpected effects elsewhere. The first step is to make an action plan. The purpose of the plan is to identify the purposes which the manager seeks to achieve, then to order them in terms of their importance, and to consider how far they are reconcilable each with the other. Systems thinking is therefore central to education about environmental management.
7 The Welsh Conservation Model
7.1 The Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) represents the latest stage in the United Kingdom's development and implementation of cross-sectorial national policies for countryside management, and is an ideal education model. Already, this organisation is pointing the way towards the establishment of single agencies in other countries that can tackle the ecological impact of agricultural and industrial development in a planning context.
7.2 As an organisation, the CCW deals with the entire range of environmental issues, such as protecting rare species, promoting landscape awareness, managing access, and helping community action. Wales, although relatively small, is sufficiently varied in landscape and culture to provide a comprehensive manageable database for illustrating all principles of environmental management as a profession. It also models the different levels of interaction with government (local and national) and the relationships with and between non- governmental organisations and local pressure groups .
7.3 The terrain of Wales ranges from mountains, with alpine rarities, to reclaimed banked and dyked agricultural land below sea level. For the most part, its beauties are based on an ancient and threatened, low input pastoral economy. Its isolated communities coexist with an industrial heritage, now expressed in large-scale urban developments, in the north and south littoral fringes. Its coastal zone is dominated by hard substrate ecosystems of cliffs and rocky shores, interspersed with estuaries and dunes which are important havens for European wildlife. The CCW’s policies have to encompass all these features, and an educational model of its comprehensive operations and case histories, would exemplify management principles appropriate to any other part of the world. The following sections about care expressed in managing nature have been inspired by the CCW, its policies and working practices.
8 A Management Orientated Curriculum
8.1 Environmental education is more about facing up to cross-curricular issues of industrialism and consumerism, than gaining detailed knowledge in core subjects about how the environment works. For example, in the non-statutory guidance on environmental education, eight out of the ten areas recommended to develop knowledge with understanding, deal with human impact, the need for environmental legislation, planning and management.
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8.2 This is supported by the weight of guidance in the UK National Curriculum on subject areas to create an environmental curriculum. In particular, it is recommended that knowledge and understanding should be developed in the following areas:-
- local, national and international legislative controls; - how policies and decisions are made about the environment; - the environmental inter-dependence of individuals groups, communities and nations. - how human lives and livelihoods are dependent on the environment; - the conflicts which can arise about environmental issues; - how the environment has been affected by past decisions and actions; - the importance of planning, design and aesthetic considerations; - the importance of effective action to protect and manage the environment; - the impact of human activities on the environment; - different environments, both past and present.
8.3 All of the attitudes and personal qualities recommended for development are those important in taking a personal view on environmental issues:
- appreciation of, and care and concern for, the environment and other living things; - independence of thought on environmental issues - a respect for the beliefs and opinions of others; - a respect for evidence and rational argument; - tolerance and open-mindedness.
It can be argued that these attitudes and qualities are necessary for everyone growing up in a world dominated by concerns about the environment, and who eventually, as voting citizens, will have to take a stand on the local and national problems, issues, and challenges of world development.
8.4 In this perspective it is recommended that environmental education should encourage values, attitudes and positive action concerned with:-
- finding ways of ensuring caring use of the environment, now and in the future; - finding solutions to environmental problems, taking into account the fact that there are conflicting interests and different cultural perspectives; - informing the choices which have to be made.
8.5 Regarding topic teaching, five of the following seven topics recommended to develop basic knowledge and understanding of the environment, are directly related to local issues of economic development:-
- people and their communities; - materials and resources including energy; - buildings, industrialisation and waste; - water; - plants and animals; - soils rocks and minerals; - climate.
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All the above topics may be linked to form a web for an environmental curriculum which exemplifies the flows of natural resources into developing communities and the adverse impact of unchecked development on the availability of these resources. The knowledge web recognises we have a duel responsibility to integrate environmental and economic aims, through management, to conserve and improve landscape and habitats, to protection land and sea from destructive developments, and to reduce the impact of consumerism on the global climate (Fig 1).
Fig 1 Topic web for an environmental education curriculum centred on the integration of economic and environmental aims of management to protect materials and resources.
8.6 Finally, the guidelines suggest that the recommendations could be achieved through using the environment as a resource for the development of skills, for direct experience, enquiry and investigation
8.7 The unifying thread in all of the non-statutory recommendations is involvement with local environmental management. To follow the guidelines in the National Curriculum, environmental education has to be supported by classroom resources which start with the ethos and operations of environmental management. These are a constantly developing holistic interplay between environmental change, national legislation, policy formulation, and how policy is turned into local action. However, this knowledge system is set apart from schools, and resides in the science and practice of nature conservation. In particular, there are no generally acceptable teacher training packages and classroom resources about the duties and grass roots tasks of site managers who are on the direct line from government to local action.
8.8 Unfortunately, the cross-curricular guidelines have merged into the background of a subject-dominated curriculum. What is really required is a radical rethink about the structure of environmental education in relation to core subjects. This approach
Contents p 154 Edition June 1, 2008 was taken by the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate in the late 1980s. The Syndicate created a new subject 'natural economy', focused on the management of natural resources for human production, and the controls necessary to sustain the supply of environmental goods. The subject was at odds with the classical subject orientation of the National Curriculum, and although natural economy has been successful in many parts of the world, there is no scope for its wide-spread introduction to British schools.
8.9 This teacher's pack is designed to boost confidence in the use of local nature sites to bring environmental management to the forefront of the National Curriculum, and as a local cross-curricular focus for topic work on the environment. A multimedia version of natural economy is being prepared to provide that pedagogic structure for those who wish to have a clear ideational structure for teaching environmental studies.
9 Conservation Management
9.1 Any model of an environment is a dynamic expression of its natural economy, which defines the flows of materials and energy, through a stock of natural resources into the socioeconomic organisation of its households and communities. Within this model, conservation management appears as a set of policies, actions, and organisations necessary to sustain local supplies of environmental goods from stocks, defined as 'landform/coastform and substrate', 'ecosystems' and 'human communities'.
9.2 An appropriate paradigm is a dynamic closed-loop flow diagram which connects natural resources to their 'origins' and 'sinks'. Environmental management provides feedback between the available goods and the amounts of stocks (Fig 2). This is a management orientated version of the topic web in Fig 1.
Fig 2 A closed-loop holistic systems model of 'environmental management
9.3 This paradigm encourages 'systems thinking' about management in the context of dealing with complex sets of interrelated elements. It defines 'countryside' and 'coast' in terms of the input of natural processes to local physiographic structures and their component ecosystems. These are the stocks of natural resources from
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which human communities draw environmental goods. The diagram is a representation of the four main cross-curricular 'windows' which define the local natural economy.
9.4 People value stocks of natural resources attached to particular supplies of materials and energy that provide 'goods' in the following ways:-
- 'user values', or 'user benefits', derive from the actual use of the stocks, whether for survival or pleasure.
- other kinds of values are expressed through options to use the stocks and 'optional values' are the values of natural resources as potential benefits for future use.
- the third contribution to the economic value of the environment is the existence value of one or more of its elements; 'existence values' are intrinsic and embedded in the actual elements, and are unconnected with their actual or future use; they have been equated with a conservation ethic; this ethic embraces our duty to sentient beings, and ecosystems, and our concern for future generations.
9.5 To express a realistic picture of the environment, an educational model has to establish connections between the local natural resources, and all three kinds of goods.
As a model of 'the countryside' it should have a notional and dynamic structure, which incorporates many perceptions. The countryside is seen variously as a place to live and work, as a 'landscape' to visit for recreation, and contemplation, and as a habitat to study. Our perceptions range from a source of wealth, to a haven for a rare species. These models are accommodated within a conventional geographical three-layered knowledge structure, which emerges from the ways in which the countryside changes:-
- geologically and climatically (the physical layer);
- through evolution (biological layer); -
- and by cultural development (constructed layer).
9.6 The perceptions of the environment as a source of various kinds of goods leads to human intervention (exploitation/management) at all layers. In the context of consumerism, the more goods we draw from our bank of natural resources, the more we demand. It is this positive feedback component of consumer demand for manufactured goods, that drives world development, and it is expressed in a dynamic educational model of 'change' and 'management' of the countryside in Fig 3.
9.7 Conservation as a movement, sets our demand for goods in the context of sustainable development. This perception prompts interventions which close a negative feedback loop against the complex forces of consumerism.
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Fig 2 A dynamic model of 'change' and 'management' in the countryside
9.8 The basic framework of this model is also relevant to an educational model of 'the coast'. To model the coastal zone it is necessary to modify the terrestrial model in Fig 2 to take into account the unique multilayered physical and biological structures. These are represented by offshore deep water, the tidal margin, and the coastal fringe under a maritime influence (Fig 4). This coastal model also expands the concept of 'cultural development' in terms of the goods of the coastal fringe, and the community's exploitation and cultivation of its local estuarine/marine biological resources. Special human interventions of importance to coastal zone management have been introduced into Fig 4 as modifications of the ‘Goods’ area of the countryside model in Fig 2.
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Fig 4 A dynamic model of 'the coastal zone'
10 The Policy Model
10.1 The specific targets of this educational model are to delineate policies of environmental management, their implementation and financial implications, which are necessary to meet the general aim of sustaining an environment that is diverse, satisfying, understandable, and utilised by people for work and leisure.
10.2 Under the general division of 'Policies of Environmental Management' there are six policy areas, each of which relates to the specific targets of policy, and is based on an area of specialised knowledge. They define the detailed divisions of the syllabus. The other general divisions define the support of policies of environmental management, under the headings of ''Research', 'Staffing', and 'Finance'.
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10.3 Policies of environmental management
Primary policy areas from which many specific policies emerge are:-
• Landform, coastform and substrate • Habitat and species • Rural work and culture • Urban work and culture • Enjoyment • Understanding
They have been set out in Fig 5 as a conceptualised information cluster around the general educational target of the model
Fig 5 The primary areas that bear directly on countryside management
10.4 Five secondary policy areas are related to the six primary ones. Two of them, 'access' (within 'Enjoyment') and 'industrial inputs' (within 'Urban work and culture'), deal with human population pressure, which affects all elements of countryside and coast.
10.5 The other three secondary policy areas have a crucial and large significance, allied with one or more of the primary areas:
- 'vegetation' (within 'Habitats and species');
- 'historic infrastructure' (within 'Habitats and species' and 'Landform, coastform and substrate');
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- 'air and water' (which provide habitat components and exchange media between environments and habitats).
10.6 These secondary areas have been placed close to the primary areas to which they are most closely related in Fig 6.
Fig 6 Primary and secondary areas of policy for countryside management.
11 Environmental Impact Planning
11.1 Any new business on a 'green-field site' goes through three phases of development. It is planned, it is operated, and, when it loses its economic advantages , or its natural resources are exhausted, its site becomes available for other uses. Each stage is characterised by questions about its environmental impact. These guide its operations and the terminal clean-up ( Fig 7). Increasingly, these basic questions related to planning and operating a business require actions to meet legal requirements of environmental protection. For most businesses the cost of clearing and restoring the site is not built into the overall development sequence. The exception is opencast mining where plans for after-use are submitted for approval before work can start. Because opencast mining in the United Kingdom illustrates all three phases of the life of a business it makes a good educational model of 'business and environment'. Using British Coal Opencast, South Wales Division, the model explains the measures taken before, during excavation and after, and summarises the research and development that backs up and improves business performance. The principles can be applied to other commercial operations which involve balancing development of productive facilities alongside environmental protection.
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Fig 7 Development phases of a productive facility
11.7 As an example of an expansion of 'policy', the area of industrial impact on the environment has been developed in Fig 8 to show three subsidiary policy areas.
These are:-
- 'modern infrastructures' essential for the movement of people, materials and power;
- 'materials and energy use', which produce demands for extraction of materials and energy ;
- 'pollution' from mass production, which disperses through air, water and substrate.
11.8 Clusters of concepts can be associated with these 11 areas which, together, comprise a checklist of general management policies and their implementation. These concepts can be expanded to delineate narrower statements of policy, and their associated programmes of research, work plans, and day to day jobs.
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Fig 8 Conceptual expansion of 'industrial inputs'
11.9 A comprehensive list of policy areas relevant to countryside mangement is presented in Table 1. This list could be used as a basis for developing environmental education projects.
Table 1 Checklist of areas for which policies for countryside management should be constructed.
1 Landform coastform and substrate
Landscape protection Specific landscape types Coastal zone (inshore waters) Mobile geomorphological sites Geological site use Monitoring
Subsidiary area Water Rivers and streams Lakes Inshore waters Irish sea issues Pollution Marine monitoring Subsidiary area Air Pollution Meteorological issues Bird migration Wind energy
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2 Habitat and species Vegetation Protection Habitats Species Communities Territories Monitoring/audit Resource bases Succession External inputs Habitat re-creation Historic infrastructure
3 Rural work and culture Farming Forestry and silviculture Materials extraction Maintenance of countryside fabric Water management Social organisation/motivation Settlement patterns and housing Transport and services Energy distribution and conservation Pollution Tourism Training for maintenance and monitoring Resource economics Voluntary action
4 Urban work and culture Social demands on the countryside Economic demands on the countryside Impacts on countryside components Pollution Modern infrastructure Materials use Energy use Transportation Opinion forming and influencing Decision making Education Urban wildlife Voluntary action
5 Enjoyment Formal recreation and sports Active informal pleasure seeking Curiosity satisfaction Transportation Tourism Use of managed sites
Subsidiary area Access Paths and networks Spaces Water Transportation Aerial access
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6 Understanding Inputs to national curriculum Inputs to further education Adult education Interpretation on site Training for environmental work Routes to political influence
12 Research Models
12.1 Research strategies to support management policies arise from the six major policy areas. Two examples of the development of models for research strategies within policy areas are given in Figs 9 and 10.
Fig 9 Conceptual framework of a research strategy to support policy area of "Habitats and Species: Vegetation"
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12.2 The first model emerges from, and supports, the primary policy area of 'Habitat and species' and is a development of the subsidiary policy area of 'Vegetation'. The highlighted boxes indicate the applied goals of a research strategy to identify and manage inland sites for nature conservation.
12.3 The second model also emerges from the policy area of 'Habitats and Species', but supports the policies of nature conservation in the area of 'Coastform and Substrate'. The latter defines the inshore coastal zone, very approximately up to the 6 mile limit, where the greatest variety of marine habitats and species exists. This variety is strongly influenced by the physiographic situation; hence its links with the policy area of ‘coastform and substrate’, which in the terrestrial management policies, relates mainly to conservation of ‘landscape’.
Fig 10 Conceptual framework of a research strategy to support policy area of "Habitats and Species: Coastform and Substrate"
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12.4 The research strategy follows the same model as that for terrestrial communities based on the characteristics of the vegetation. The initial surveys have the objective of describing and classifying marine ecosystems, and identifying sites of nature conservation importance. These proceed in three phases broadly comparable to the procedure for terrestrial surveys, except that community groupings are based on information about the abundance of species, but with more reliance on 'the experienced eye approach' than computer sorting.
12.5 Community groups are classified by physiographic situation, salinity, wave exposure, tidal stream, and site type, which reflects the more complex structure and dynamics of the coastal zone. Another difference between the models is that the management objectives are concerned mainly with safeguarding habitats. Habitat re- creation is not a realistic option, and is replaced by the aim of establishing conditions for the restoration of depleted communities.
13 The Site Management Model
13.1 The major UK conservation organisations have adopted the Countryside Management System (CMS) for databasing site management information. The CMS is a generally accepted database for recording information needed for day to day, and year on year, management of nature sites, because it follows the standard procedure of managing any system. The database is organised dynamically to follow the four stages of devising and operating a management plan.
These stages are:-
- setting objectives; - defining management prescriptions to reach the objectives; - launching projects which are the work plans to fulfil the objectives of the overall plan.
Stage 1
What are the objectives of management?
Planning involves setting measurable objectives so that the work and outcomes of management can be audited. For example, a management objective could appear in CMS entitled "Maintain the Marsh Fritillary in a favourable condition".
Stage 2
What are the management strategies for reaching the objectives?
Objectives are reached by defining management strategies termed prescriptions. An objective may have several prescriptions assigned to it. For example, two management prescriptions related to the above objective could appear in CMS entitled "Monitor the Marsh Fritillary"; "Provide shelter for egg-laying adults".
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Stage 3
How are management strategies turned into projects?
Prescriptions are strategic routes to action which require setting tasks in the form of projects. A project is a description of the work to be carried out, its timing, the manpower required, equipment needed, and the costs. For example, a project to meet the first of the above prescriptions could appear in CMS entitled "Count butterflies, using marked transects, on every day favourable for flying".
Stage 4
How does a manager demonstrate that management is effective?
Reports are compiled to demonstrate that management is effective and efficient, and to communicate best practice between sites and organisations. For example, feedback on monitoring could be reported as "A plot of the last five years counts of the Marsh Fritillary in relation to its acceptable limits of change".
13.2 Organisation of the database
Information in CMS is structured in a hierarchy OBJECTIVE: Prescription: project Data are accessed via eight buttoned windows which appear as the starter menu. Each window presents a particular way of viewing, handling, and updating site information (Fig 11).
Fig 11 Points of access to the CMS.
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13.3 CMS can be thought of as a comprehensive on-site filing cabinet. As a computer system it is a relational database for retrieving grass–roots information in combinations to suite the nature of the enquiry. Its reporting facility may be customised to meet the particular needs of organisations.
13.4 It has not been designed to hold the voluminous baseline description of sites. However, filling in its on-screen forms follows the logic and dynamics of management planning, which aim to match work plans to management objectives. Therefore, the forms may be used as prompts to create the working end of a management plan.
13.5 An educational version of the CMS is being developed which will use data from real sites, which are using CMS as a professional management tool, to encourage schools to use their local nature site as a resource for environmental education.
14 Modelling Socio-historical Heritage
14.1 In taking goods from a natural resource site, whether mining copper, or exercising a dog on the local common, environmental problems, issues and challenges, arise because, unchecked, our ever-increasing demands will eventually exhaust the stocks. Legislation policies, expressed in conservation management, are required as a set of organisations and actions necessary to sustain local supplies of environmental goods from the stocks, defined variously as 'landform/coastform and substrate', and 'ecosystems': and 'source-historical heritage'.
14.2 The previously defined models take an holistic view of the rural environment, as a dynamic interplay between landform and ecosystems on the one hand, and the people who live, work or visit the countryside, on the other. They operate within the context of science and planning, applied to protect ecosystems and landforms. They also support local community action to protect or enhance the environment. These aspects of local history not only bond modern communities with their environment, but are also powerful magnets, which by attracting visitors, who see them as environmental goods, accentuate the environmental impact of local development. Therefore, a complete information system dealing with local environmental management, should provide access to the socio- historical heritage which gives the countryside a unique ‘sense of place’.
The aim is to fill this gap by establishing an informatics model for storing and retrieving information about local socio-historical heritage, which integrates the history of people and the built environment with the local biological productivity.
14.3 The model is outlined in Fig 12. It represents basic knowledge at two levels of complexity; the inventory of major elements that go to make up a local historical heritage, and the systems which incorporate these elements to define the local social dynamics.
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Fig 12 The information model of socio-historical heritage
The elements of the inventory are defined as:-
- personages are those individuals who have made a local impact as developers or opinion makers;
- constructions are the major buildings, parks and gardens that chart the progress of human development;
- creations are the main art forms associated with the constructed elements;
- landforms define the local landscape character as a panorama expressing the main features of local development;
- substrate defines the geological formations which define the local terrain and soils;
- species are the biological entities which are the outcome of local long-term evolution, and the domesticated plants and animals that have been imported as part of local agrarian production systems or ornamental gardens.
14.4 These elements are incorporated into systems which together define local socioeconomic dynamics in the past and present. The deliverable is an electronic library of text, pictures, sound, and video clips. As a map of local environmental information it will allow users to navigate into the past. More importantly it will also
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15 Systems Thinking' And Conservation Management
15.1 To produce a general educational model for discovery-oriented learning about environmental management, the work has to delineate the dynamic system. It has to determine:-
- the valued features of nature sites; - the way they vary in relation to flows of materials and energy; - the effects of flows on the condition the main stocks subject to management within the planning unit (Table 2).
The model has to be based on an inventory of important features, and consists of a set of closed-loop systems defining the variability of stocks and the relationships between them. Users will then be able to experiment with the main inputs. In this way they will gain an understanding of the managment procedures for maintaining features within acceptable limits, and resolving issues and problems of managing multipurpose natural resources. These procedures will be expressed in the form of projects, and stress the importance of 'projectising' in environmental monitoring and features audit, which are vital 'tools' to implement a management plan.
Table 2 Examples of manageable features of a multi-purpose nature site.
Farmed herbivores Ways of livelihood Wild herbivores Access points Timber Ancient woodlands Ornamental woodlands Treeless ecosystems Wildlife under threat Pest species Constructed elements Character-views
15.2 The stock of a feature may be measured in many different ways e.g. as a number, a list, a scenic pattern. The inputs to be defined in relation to the condition of the stocks, which are many and varied, such as the physical elements of climate, management skills, materials required for management, and finance available from the public and private purse.
15.3 A general educational model for each ecosystem has to be assembled using information obtained from specific sites by:-
• describing the planning unit, and its outstanding problems, issues and challenges,
• defining the operational objectives in terms of:
- goals; - compartments; - type of management;
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- stocks to be monitored; - norms for the stocks and their limits to change.
• making a features inventory with the condition of each stock and its limits of acceptable change.
• constructing a feedback loop for each stock, and its most important sub-systems, based on:- -time-course of production -stability -spatial patterns -operational objectives -effort to meet management goals -inputs financial inputs special incentives physical inputs biological inputs human skills specialised inputs -outputs environmental goods (material/non- material perceptions) monetary profits
- interactions with other stocks -feedback from audit to regulate change in stocks
• constructing conflict-loops based on:-
-interactions with other conditions -competition for resources -management/information networks -the planning levers of public/private investment. -pressure groups, vested interests and power bases.
15.4 From the above data three kinds of cross-platform electronic resources can be assembled:-
• a text based 'hypermedia library' of key documents; • a multimedia 'enquiry-mode-programme' (Table 3); • a computer simulation of a herbivore management system (Fig 13) with user-directed inputs that 'gives the feel of managing the environment for sustainable yields.
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Fig 13 A closed-loop management system
Table 3 Contents of 'an enquiry mode programme' about environmental management .
Navigation Aids Introduction to system Using icons to navigate Using 'hot' objects Overview & Links
History Milestones People Places Quiz
Stock/feature inventory Managed mammals Ecosystems Ways of livelihood Wildlife Character-views
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Quiz
Stock Models Farmed herbivores Wild herbivores Timber and woodland Treeless ecosystems Quiz
Conflict Models Areas of conflict Models of goals conflict Management for sustainable yields: the future Quiz
16 Importance Of Systems Thinking
16.1 Environmental management is about resolving conflicts between local processes which impinge upon a valued feature to ensure the feature, is sustainable within limits set on either side of a norm for its condition. Each input in the conflict is part of a complex dynamic system taking a portion of the local natural resource, either as a source of materials/ energy, a condition of existence, or a human good. Most pressing environmental issues and critical conflicts are dynamic in nature. Science applied to environmental management is concerned with developing explanations for dynamic systems of one form or another. Education in environmental management therefore has to encourage thinking about such systems.
16.2 The dynamic nature of environment gives rise to difficulties in educating about management, because as a rule people are not very good at 'visualising' dynamic behaviour. We are basically much better at static exercises such as analysing the structure of a system. We do this by assembling lists and inventories and making assumptions, by mapping the links between elements in a list or inventory. To actually trace the outcome of a set of assumptions in time, through a web of relationships, is beyond most people's mental abilities. In the context of a local disturbance to the environment, this difficulty in thinking dynamically often results in 'unexpected' effects which appear at a point remote from the point of disturbance.
16.3 Computers are tools which allow us to overcome our inherent limitations to thinking about systems productively. Computers cannot grasp assumptions, but provide a computer with an unambiguously structured set of assumptions about a system, no matter how complex, and it always will correctly trace out dynamic behaviour patterns and tell us the effects on its future condition.
16.4 The importance of computers in providing explanations and predictions about dynamic phenomena, also makes them of fundamental importance to teach people about environmental management. Learners have two basic approaches, they can either use explanations provided by others, or seek to develop explanations for themselves. The former produces some level of understanding quickly. The latter has
Contents p 173 Edition June 1, 2008 the potential for producing a deeper and more lasting understanding by 'ownership of knowledge' through 'discovery'. Computer simulations of environmental systems are discovery games. The learner maps out the dynamic behaviour on screen as a structural diagram, with its assumptions and associated numerical values, and then directs the programme to trace the outcomes on the system's conditions at some point in the future.
17 Stocks Flows And Feedback
17.1 A system is defined by two different aspects; its 'conditions' and its 'activities. Its activities are responsible for its conditions. In computer modelling, the condition of a feature is measured as a stock. This represents the outcome ( an accumulation) of an activity, i.e. an activity is defined as a flow of something which changes the stock. For example, a vital condition of any environment is population size. 'Population' is a stock which is the outcome of an inflow of 'births' and an outflow of 'deaths'.
17.2 Stocks and flows are important concepts in their own right. However, their real contribution derives from their utility in representing management as a goal-seeking process. 'Goal-seeking' is the continuous generation of actions, aimed at maintaining conditions in line with goals for these conditions.
17.3 Goal seeking is a fundamental activity which all living things engage in. Without the ability to seek goals, nothing could remain viable for very long. Goal-seeking is what enables conditions within a system to remain 'on course' The system set out in Fig 14 indicates that conditions represent accumulations resulting from a flow of activity.
Fig 14 A closed loop cause-and-effect relationship
17.4 Conditions of features are perceivable. They indicate how things are going in the system. They give rise to the 'squeaky wheels' that cry out for attention; these are indicators of a discrepancy between how things are and how they should be. When a discrepancy between a condition and a goal arises there is a problem or issue, and a
Contents p 174 Edition June 1, 2008 flow of activity is generated aimed at resolving the problem or issue by eliminating the discrepancy. This set of relationships is called a closed loop. The system in Fig 4 negates disturbances and is called a negative feedback loop. The analysis and operation of negative feedback loops are the major activities of environmental management, because they seek to restore the environment to the desirable state of its features that existed before something came along to disturb it.
17.5 In summary, feedback loops are cause-and-effect relationships which generate goal-seeking behaviour. Feedback loop cause-and-effect always runs from stocks to flows and back to stocks again. This is because stocks are 'conditions'. Conditions, once perceived give rise to actions expressed as flows of activity. Flows in turn change conditions. Its not just 'conditions' that inspire actions. Its really the conditions relative to some desired state, or a target state, for the conditions. When deviations occur, feedback relationships inspire and direct corrective actions to bring conditions back in line.
18 Goal-conflict
18.1 Whenever goal-seeking activity occurs within a web of interdependent conditions, there is an opportunity for goal conflict to occur. Goal-conflict is seen when efforts that are designed to bring one condition into line with its goal, simultaneously 'bump into' some other condition or conditions knocking it out of line with its goal (Fig 15). Its difficult to achieve all our many goals simultaneously. We're forced to make choices and to endure the consequences. The real challenge is to make the best trade-offs, the ones that leave us feeling the best about ourselves and simultaneously do the maximum good for 'the web' of consumers to which we belong.
19 Management Plans
18.1 The first step in making a management model is to summarise the available information according to the following nine-part questionnaire.
Part 1 answers the question "What is the planning unit?". and contains the references for the planning unit, including a bibliography
Part 2 answers the question "What are its natural resources?" and summarises past and present uses of the site as a local natural resource, which have affected its appearance and bio-physical condition.
Part 3 answers the question " What is the conservation value of the site?" and lists the features of the site that are of conservation value.
Part 4 answers the question "What are the management objectives in relation to the dynamics of the site?" and summarises the management objectives, sets the norms and limits of acceptable change for the valued features, and provides the prompts for action if these limits are exceeded.
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Fig 15 Goal conflict through the interaction of stocks
Part 5 answers the question "What are the limitations to achieving the management objectives?" and describes the factors currently limiting management.
Part 6 answers the question "What are the local issues that influence the integrity of the site?" and outlines the local issues that affect current management.
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Part 7 answers the question, "What human actions would destroy the integrity of the site?" and gives the edicts which forbid certain operations on the site
Part 8 answers the question "Is management limited by a lack of information?" and lists the additional information that is required for the current management plan to be effective.
Part 9 answers the question "What work has to be done on the site?" and lists the management plan in terms of general objectives and the specific tasks to be carried out to meet these objectives. This is the database which is expressed in CMS.
19.2 By obtaining answers to these questions you come very close to establishing an outline management plan. The plan has to be integrated with various projects associated with the management plan to define the system which is to be controlled (Fig 16). A selection of these projects, by type, should be incorporaped into a management model.
Fig 16 The management systm
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'NEIGHBOURHOOD' AS AN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE
'In my own quiet study in a leafy Exeter road, or on the salt-marshes of Norfolk, or the steel-grey seashore of Suffolk, or wherever I was in the most beautiful country in the world, I was always learning something special. But above all, there were two leading ideas- not specially new perhaps, but becoming more and more deeply impressed upon my mind. These were that in most parts of England, everything is older than we think. There are places where one treads on three thousand years of history, sometimes four thousand or more. The landscapes I looked at many years ago were even then more than just scenery. I wanted to know what they were saying. Now I know something of the code and how to decipher it. In his third lecture on Landscape, Constable - that beloved and most English of painters - quotes.
"It is the Soul that sees, the outward eyes Present the object, but the Mind descries".
Then he adds a sentence that could be the theme of this whole book on English landscapes in so far as I have been successful in conveying it.
"We see nothing until we understand it"'. (W. G. Hoskins)
1 Environment And Planning
1.1 It is important to focus the practical study of natural economy on the local environment. First, because that is where the roots of past development have made an impact on the landscape used daily by the investigator. Second, because by becoming involved with local problems of development, children can take the small, but often difficult, steps towards 'action education', by which they can find out how local people can participate in planning for a better environment. An understanding of what made the local landscape is more potent in terms of getting involved to change things for the better than studying the environmental issues of the tropical rainforest in Brazil, which are too remote to influence.
1.2 An environmentally conscious society will not be created by passing legislation and developing environmental protection policies based on scientific soundness and sociological platitudes. Preservation of a quality environment will only become a reality if we can develop broad citizen understanding of the short-range and long- range objectives of sound environmental management, and citizen acceptance of the personal commitment necessary to achieve those objectives. The gap between goals and actuality is the one to be filled by a local environmental knowledge system which not only includes information about heritage and ecological management, but also about the organisation of society and methods of government in decision making.
1.3 Natural economy provides a classroom knowledge system to link human resource utilisation with conservation management. It puts academic approaches of
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'constructive geography' or the science of the planned transformation and management of nature into a pedagogic framework.
1.4 Through various human behaviours which provide the causation, environments are shifted from one state to another. Every environment has a biophysical predisposition to instability, related to climate and the way ecosystems have developed through evolution.
1.5 Human causation increasingly produces degraded environments where conservation management has to be applied either to stabilise a bad situation to prevent it from becoming worse or to return it as far as possible to its primeval state. Increasingly the former aim of management is the only option available.
1.6 The check list in Fig 1 provides a perspective for pupils to 'dissect' local landscapes to determine the causes of change and the define the new norms and processes that human activities have produced or activated. Each cause, effect and process is a well defined topic with national and international databases available for further study. The check list also provides the 'field' structure for establishing a local database on computer or record cards.
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Fig 1 Conservation management in the context of a model of human causation and environmental change.
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2 Education and Planning
2.1 Planning is related to the contemporary monetary economy. Therefore any subject dealing with world development should be placed clearly within the prerequisite knowledge required for a full understanding of the human economy. In this respect, the natural economy of any region is related to its political economy, and governed by its endemic commercialism, both of which determine its human social organisation and material horizons. Therefore, the knowledge system has been structured so that it is possible to gain access to natural economy from political history and social history.
2.2 A central principle in setting the main vertical divisions, and their subdivision into component topics, is that natural economy will be increasingly studied as a total knowledge network from a computer managed database. This arrangement will be necessary to provide Bacon's "through-lights" between specialist disciplines, but also because of the increasing cross-curricular dimensions to education, and the need for frequent updating. Such a database may be used to generate classroom paper media, such as books, broadsheets and card indexes.
2.3 The advantages of organising data and information about the environment within the above knowledge system may be outlined as follows.
2.4 There is a need for new global knowledge systems because all countries are irreversibly intertwined, not only through industrial economics, but also biologically through a shared corpus of specialised knowledge dealing with the impact of industrialisation, and physically through the sharing of the 'global commons' of atmosphere and oceans. This is why unification of knowledge within the context of natural economy is recognised as relevant and valuable. It provides a much-needed cross-curricular theme for schools; emphasises the lateral links to be established between the many specialisms concerned with the exploitation and conservation of natural resources; and makes these links within a well defined philosophical framework.
2.5 Most schools' curricula are based on a rigid framework of European nineteenth century academic subjects. This sets barriers to a holistic educational viewpoint. First, because problems are seen from too narrow viewpoints, and second, because there is no space for an additional subject about world development. In all these respects it is important that a clear basic ideological scaffold is set from which a network of pathways may be delineated for integrating knowledge across specialist divisions.
2.6 Natural economy offers such a scaffold, with pathways through these barriers in the form of cross-curricular studies. It also has a pedagogical unity as an environmental subject, and its' clear-cut interdisciplinary economic structure, based on systems analysis, offers advantages over the amorphous and idiosyncratic assemblies of environmental knowledge which tend to characterise 'environmental studies', 'environmental science', and 'general studies'. It also has advantages over broader-based geography syllabuses, which are often arbitrary, and lack the emphasis
Contents p 181 Edition June 1, 2008 on world development. It certainly has advantages over subjects dealing with local development, such as rural studies and rural economy, in that it stresses the pervasive local impact of the forces of global industrialisation.
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3 Analytical Topography
3.1 Analytical topography is a method for investigating the natural economy of a region through the structure of the local landscapes.
3.2 The natural economy of a community affects the landscape according to what people produce in relation to their culture, economics, and ethics. These interactions involve particular fusions of human behaviour and simple technologies, which vary with time and place. These fusions represent the basic human approaches to the problems of organising a steady supply of food and shelter. In this respect, the natural economy of self-sufficiency, makes very little impact on landscape. Since Conklin defined ethnoecology, industrialism has made world cultures much more uniform, and it is probably true to say that the lessons to be learned from comparative cultural analysis are now mostly historical ones. However, the current global emphasis on conservation is a modern aspect of ethnoecology, where the goals are the preservation of local or regional landscape elements which reflect cultural heritage and ancient wildlife communities. There is a need to develop common methodologies for communicating local responses to the problems, issues and challenges of local development.
3.3 Modern landscapes are dominated by the development of interdependent human communities, characterised by the operation of market economies. In his introduction to the series of books on 'The Making of the English Landscape', the editor, W.G. Hoskins wrote, "The authors of these books are concerned with the ways in which men have cleared the natural woodlands, reclaimed marshland, fen and moor, created country houses and their parks, dug mines and made canals and railways, in short with everything that has altered the natural landscape". At any one time the natural economy of a region is written in its landscapes. Hoskins was one of the first to point out that every landscape contains visible or buried records of the various ways in which people have treated the area as a resource, from the time when the first settlers arrived. 'Analytical topography', is a way of reading the landscape 'language' to reveal the underlying socio-economic forces that govern its productivity. It deals with the analysis of the the diverse human behaviours that have changed any particular tract of countryside from its primeval condition.
3.4 'Topography' is defined in both its original eighteenth century, European, literary sense, as a gazetteer, or total description of a tract of countryside, and its modern context of mapping. Analytical topography is a unifying focus of a range of disciplines needed to decipher and resolve environmental problems. In outline, it is concerned with the definition of distinctive behaviours connected with the ways in which people perceive a landscape as a resource. Perceptions of resource potential are primarily a matter of terrain, biological systems, the demand for products, the technology available to develop the resources, and the spread of wealth. The exploitation of the resource potential is governed by complex social constraints, such as legislation, education, religion, and economic constraints, such as taxes and subsidy.
3.5 Thus, industrialism not only changes the biological and physical elements of landscape, but also the local resources of human labour. For example, local,
Contents p 183 Edition June 1, 2008 scattered, family production systems disappear (e.g. European village shoemakers) as a result of the invention of mass production technologies to make a cheaper product.
3.6 There can be little doubt that today, the practice of market economics largely governs the relations between man and nature, worldwide. However, the mental attitudes of people towards nature, and hence towards resources, depends, not only on the monetary relationship between the community and its local landscape, but also upon its image of the world, and the influence of environment on its culture. Also, conventional economics is not always suitable for regulating human resource needs, when price cannot be equated with value. In particular, all methods used to fix prices fail when land has a scenic, religious or historical value. Together, these resource- seeking behaviours, the underlying economic forces, and the cultural constraints, determine the local and national patterns of land use. These patterns are the visible expression in the landscape of the natural economy of a region.
3.7 Comparative analytical topography embraces the study of past and present development of systems for rural resource management, through the analysis of vernacular landscape models. This comparative view of landscapes indicates that local agrarian economies have changed through becoming linked with global resource management, particularly in relation to the bulk transportation of specialised primary products to distant markets by sea and air.
3.8 At all levels of development, economic forces determine landscape structure through the operation of local differentials in the distribution of wealth, which are visible mostly through their effects on shelter and land compartmentation. For example, the kinds of homes, and the size of fields, are a direct expression of the economic segregation of families. At the extreme, economic segregation creates a landscape of 'the culture of poverty' inhabited by peoples with a low degree of social organisation. Such landscapes are poorly integrated and lacking in the features that mark the cultural self-sufficiency and satisfactions characteristic of even the poorest of primitive, preliterate, self-sufficient peoples, with low levels of technology and resources. In these respects poverty alone does not create a culture of poverty, which is a modern phenomenon associated with areas of dense population created by migration of country people to the cities of ex-colonial societies.
3.9 Although preservation of valued features of the countryside is an understandable attitude, it is seldom a working policy, because of the compartmentation of knowledge required for compromise and 'social balance' in land use. At school there is little formal attempt to integrate the many specialist views required to analyse the environment in a balanced way.
3.10 In order to understand how any particular tract of countryside has come to appear in its present form, requires the knowledge and methodologies of a number of subjects which define our place in nature. This interdisciplinary area of analysis deals with the clear-cut patterns of human behaviour necessary, to preserve the environment as a self-sustaining resource base. In this respect, school project work directed towards finding out about the local environment expressed as 'landscape', encourages personal involvement with the managerial compromises necessary, to keep the environment functioning productively and match our increase in numbers with our demands for space and a dignified life-style.
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4 Geography of 'Place'
4.1 People first gather information about their surroundings by becoming curious about some particular feature of their local landscape. We also relate to landscape to choose our pictures and our holidays, when our choices depend, to a large extent, on education and familiarity with actual landscapes. These self-generated interactions with landscape, which involve a combination of innate curiosity and a statement of personal values, offer an opportunity to promote environmental education through landscape analysis. The goal would be to create an understanding of how landscapes develop, according to the ways different people make use of a local environment, and the compromises they have to make in order to fit in with the demands of other users.
4.2 Topographical analysis of any landscape will generate many educational topics from quite a small area of the countryside (Fig 2). This requires the broad presentation of an actual landscape in such a way, so as to stimulate each child to build a personal body of knowledge. Ideally this first contact should be through an actual school trip, but a video, based on a particular landscape, is probably more realistic for most schools. The minimum component for teaching is therefore a strong visual 'starter' stimulus, with detailed back-up information about the various topics which the landscape will introduce.
Fig. 2 Natural Economy as the focus of knowledge obtained through the application of topographical analysis to landscape.
2.3 The aim is to instil a methodology by which the landscape may be read comprehensively. The resultant awareness of detail and the interdisciplinary confidence generated, are both necessary for compromise in any managerial conflict between environmental specialists. In a wider sense, education through landscape, rather than to landscape, will also nurture an ecological conscience and goodwill towards all the professions responsible for changing the environment.
4.3 In a general educational sense the idea is to promote skills in the handling of knowledge. The aims are to promote a widening and deepening of experience through communication, involving verbal, pictorial, graphic and literary activities,
Contents p 186 Edition June 1, 2008 problem solving, extraction of principles and concepts, manipulation of numerical data, and selective follow-up, to create a personal body of knowledge using books and articles.
5 Methodology Of Analytical Topography.
5.1 Select a study area based on a visually stimulating impact of a day-trip; a short video; a landscape photograph; an artistic impression of a landscape; or an aerial view. The study area may be of any size, up to about 100 square miles.
5.2 Take up the methodology to obtain a systematic description of a view, to provide an understanding of its appearance and options for managing its various elements.
(i) Define the structure (from a panorama, aerial survey, and close-up shots)
Physical Biological Constructed Revealed by the following questions What physical structure do you see from here? (slopes, flats, horizontals, diagonals, verticals, lumps and humps) What more would a birds-eye view reveal? What more would a close-up reveal? What more would a library search reveal?
(ii) Define the systems (the ideational scaffold providing conceptual "windows" and "doors" to specialist knowledge about how the landscape works and is managed)
Geological system Ecological system Cultural system Population Resources Life-supporting Food Shelter Goods Services Infrastructure Life-enhancing Historical Recreational Contemplative Scenic Spiritual Problematical Educational
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(iii) Define change within the various systems
(iv) Define conflict between the various systems
(v) Define management to sustain or improve the view and resolve systems conflict.
5.3 Choose one of the elements of the knowledge net which has affected the development of the landscape, for analysis by individual project work. Development in this context starts from the local visible planetary 'time' expressed in the surface geology. The study could proceed from any viewpoint; e.g. stratography; historical settlement, agricultural/industrial development, ecology; and aesthetics of landscape appreciation from the points of view of art, tourism and recreation.
6 Biology of 'Place'
6.1 The easiest way to begin to think about any biological system is to draw up a balance sheet separating indigenous structures from imported materials, and list the various structural interconnections between inputs and outputs. Small, distinctive landscape 'islands' are particularly useful as 'starters' in this exercise, because their clear cut boundaries between the systems within the boundaries and those of the surroundings, make the job of demarcation relatively easy. The island model is therefore used where the aim is to understand the functions of ecosystems through the integration of all living and non-living factors, to study the life of an individual species in relative isolation, and to carry out long-term biological monitoring in a well-defined area.
6.2 The main ideas about ecology are centred on spatial patterns in plant and animal diversity. They are connected with the location, distribution and patterns of the various component ecosystems and the ways in which they inter-connect. There is also an important body of ideas surrounding the ways in which ecosystems throughout the world are organised on the same principles, despite large variations in climate and their plants and animals.
7 General Educational Aims.
7.1 In a general educational sense the aims are to promote various skills, and widen and deepen experience through observation and thought. The three most important elements are:-
- 'understanding ideas'; - 'practising skills in the handling of knowledge'; - 'developing attitudes'; - 'understanding other peoples attitudes and values'.
7.2 These are the elements usually lacking in the environmental studies work in primary schools. There has also been considerable concern expressed about much of
Contents p 188 Edition June 1, 2008 the theme, topic or project work done in school. Does it form part of a well-organised body of knowledge ? Does it extend the child? Is it too arbitrary? This particular programme and its follow-up material may be taken up as part of the several new 'generalist' syllabuses which deal with the processes, which make and maintain the local landscape, and should be seen in the long-run as fitting into a logical framework of global knowledge dealing with natural economy.
7.3 The four most important skills to be developed are:-
i Communication: by verbal, pictorial, graphic and literary activities .
ii Classification of knowledge into principles and concepts.
iii Problem solving: by defining the need for information and ordering descriptive and numerical data.
iv Selective follow-up: the creation of a personal body of knowledge, using books and articles.
7.4 The usual sequence of developing the educational skills required in any investigation are enclosed in Fig.3, and surrounded by the methods of obtaining and assessing knowledge.
Fig. 3 Educational skills to be developed from a video
7.5 In the past there was criticism of some of the 'world geography' to which children were subjected. It was too remote, meaningless, and not relevant to modern living. On the other hand, part of the criticism being levelled against 'new geography', especially for younger children, is that it is, or can be, very narrow and lacking the rigorous body of knowledge that delineates a ' balanced subject'. It does not sufficiently open children's eyes to other parts of the world. Analytical topography aims to introduce a local situation from which generalisations can be made to all parts
Contents p 189 Edition June 1, 2008 of the world through follow-up material ,which puts a neighbourhood in a global setting.
7.6 People who belong to professions are often represented as stereotypes, although we know that people in all groups differ in attitudes, skills, personal relationships and values. In order to appreciate the work of others it is important to understand to what extent their values are general ones for the population as a whole, and how other special values are related to the special aspects of the work situation and the jobs they are called upon to do. Watching the video will generate attitudes towards the people taking part, and it is important to discuss any special attitudes that emerge on the part of the viewers, particularly to preconceived ones.
7.7 The way in which the landscape is presented, together with the support materials, will help pupils to understand what they are doing and why. After viewing the video, and undertaking work related to it, they will be much more AWARE of what is going on around them; more INTERESTED to learn skills which will help them to find out more; more TOLERANT of people and events; more CONCERNED about events, and other people and their world; more CARING to the extent of wanting to do something positive.
8 Specific Educational Aims
8.1 The nature of the specific work undertaken can vary tremendously. Because of this it is important to use a rigid approach to the follow-up process by structuring the kinds and usage of additional resource material. Broadly speaking, the approach can either be made very broad, by sticking closely to those elements which create responses and provide the historical background to landscape, or there can be a sharper focus on ecology.. There is a place for fairly straightforward factual work. However, it is very necessary for children to be taught as early as possible, that very often in the environmental field, answers are not black or white, right or wrong. How one views or interprets what is seen depends on many things, such as needs, experiences, viewpoint and perspective. This aspect of perception of the environment is important. A starving family will see an environment principally as a source of food, an industrialist might see it as a place for a new factory or an advertising hoarding.
8.2 The following elements repeatedly crop up in environmental education and should be developed through specific follow-up material allowing, as far as possible, each child to take an individual approach to a subject which she finds particularly interesting.
Understanding.
A nature reserve 'island' ecosystem can be a major source for introducing children to the content and ways of working of different specialist subjects, that have to be interpreted in relation to other specialist topics. Elements of geography, history and science can readily be recognised in the programme and developed from there. It is often a good idea to undertake a follow up project which
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deliberately utilises the different skills, interests and subject backgrounds of different teachers.
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Emotional response.
This is to do with feelings and reactions, visual awareness, sensory interpretations etc. Our feelings may well change as time passes but these feelings are an important stimulus for creative work; writing, spelling, drawing, painting etc.
Moral response.
Much environmental work in the past has been 'passive' It has been 'done' in the classroom from books without really affecting children's attitudes or values. Managing the environment is about judgments, about care and concern, about social and political influences, and about fairness and tolerance. This can be a difficult area for teachers to deal with, for it raises fears of handling sensitive issues, indoctrination etc.
Nevertheless, often an emotional response can be developed into a moral attitude to a situation.
9 Resources For Analytical Topography
9.1 To follow the formal system outlined above, each pupil should be presented with three kinds of resources:-
- The starter guide - The extension file - The enrichment material
The starter guide.
For an actual visit to a real environment this is a point-to-point guided walk through its main physical or biological elements. The landscape starter guides are designed to introduce the primeval situation, where appropriate, the notable human environmental impacts, and topic suitable for follow up. In the case of a video, the starter guide is a summary of the principles and concepts suitable for follow-up. In both cases the follow up material is presented in the extension file specially created for the landscape.
The Extension File.
An extension file contains 3 kinds of information.
i A Subject List which is a classified index of the main subjects introduced in the walk or the video. The list may be used as a "subject cafeteria" from which the pupil can select a narrow topic of interest, to be used as a focus for the collection and classification of relevant knowledge.
ii An Ideas Pack which is a list of the main ideas arising from the video, together with information that pupils can use to develop the ideas.
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iii A selection of ' Project Files' each of which deals with an area of knowledge based on a principle or concept. Each pack contains a 'Starter Statement' which delineates the area of knowledge, and a 'Data Pack' consisting of documents and data sheets from which a project report may be assembled.
The enrichment material.
It is important to assemble books and articles that may be used as a library for the project workers.
9.2 The scheme of work.
The scheme of work is outlined in Fig 4. The aim is to start with the stimulating visual aspects of the particular environment being studied to the generalisms of landscape processes. In anticipation of individual responses, the follow-up packs have to have the potential of catering for the entire range of primary topics introduced through the guide. Although any environment will do as a 'starter', it obviously helps if it is an area with a dramatic visual appeal, and with a good range of features that will stimulate questions in a wide range of primary subjects.
Fig.4 The general scheme. (numbers = order scheme is carried out)
9.2 Layout of an 'Island' Video.
Videos are usually purpose-made, to serve not only as a specific education aid, but as an introduction to the ecosystem for schools which intend to take a party of children on a day trip. Throughout, the emphasis is placed on the need for children to prepare themselves for the visit, not only in terms of the distinctive kinds of wildlife they will see, but also from the practical point of view of the facilities, or rather lack of facilities, they will encounter. The latter aspects, connected with the control of human visitors, are of great importance in nature reserve management. This special reason why the video was made therefore introduces a special aspect for classroom
Contents p 193 Edition June 1, 2008 interaction, concerned with the assessment of its value as an introduction to a semi- wild landscape.
9.3 Aside from the script, the visual aspects all provide a comprehensive coverage of distinctive physical and biological elements, not only of the island's, but also of the adjacent 'mainland' which belongs to the same wider regional ecosystem. The conservation theme is stated in terms of the need to control visitors, to obtain knowledge of the lives of the island's special plants and animals, and the requirement to apply this knowledge to maintain plants, animals and people in a set balance. This theme is interwoven with any commercial activities which created the wildlife habitat or currently impinge upon it.
9.4 Knowledge about landscape structure may be studied according to the various human activities which affect it. These are set out in a systematic way to present all the activities which contribute to the local natural economy. Data about each activity may be collected, either first-hand from the actual landscape, or through desk-studies of archival material, and often by the combined application of both methods.
Natural economy is the focus for a wide body of knowledge about natural structures, processes and systems, together with the techniques and social mechanisms by which we may regulate relationships between them. In particular, it provides a frame of reference for local planning by placing local landscape features in a historical, biological and economic setting. It thereby defines the local richness of the environment, which is often difficult to see as a whole, because of the impediments of specialist knowledge boundaries. In this respect, environmental management to maintain standards of 'environmental richness' requires a thorough knowledge of the local natural economy.
The structures of natural economy are:-
People, plants, animals, soils, the atmosphere, the seas, rivers, water bodies and wetlands, geological formations, man-made landscape elements, and climatic zones.
The processes of natural economy are:-
Geological dynamics, hydrological dynamics, climatic change, evolution and extinction, plant and animal succession, settlement and population dynamics.
The systems of natural economy are:-
Weather, ecosystems, human communities, plant and animal husbandry, human utilisation of materials and energy, environmental protection.
The social mechanisms of control and regulation of natural economy are:-
Legislation, education, religion, profits, taxes and subsidy.
9.5 From the above outline it may be said that natural economy is related closely to environmental management. Indeed, a project in analytical topography may be mounted as an elementary systems analysis of the schools local environment, which
Contents p 194 Edition June 1, 2008 will involve understanding a locally dominant physical, biological or social feature of development through individual project work. These projects will deal with the ways in which people have to adapt to their physical, biological and cultural milieu, and will involve researching into the various ways that the environment is perceived, managed and protected by the local population.
9.6 The gathering of appropriate data could be by reading, archive assessment, observation and experiment. Where possible this information should be related to a managerial model of the environment, where human disturbance of the natural economy is counteracted by:-
i Defining a model of the system and it's governing mechanisms.
ii Making predictions from the model about the results of human impact.
iii Testing the predictions by data collection.
iv Mounting a management programme to counteract human impact based on the tested model.
10 Summary of Aims
10.1 The aims are to stimulate individual self-confidence in approaching and formulating critical attitudes to multidisciplinary environmental problems. These aims will be achieved through the encouragement of creativity and interactivity, to assemble first hand, a personal body of knowledge.
10.2 The methods of analytical topography are best applied through grouped projects within a class, which produce a novel understanding of a particular current local landscape development, that can be extended from year to year. Less dynamic subjects may be generated from the stimulus of a distinct visual element of the landscape. Each landscape element is often a window or door into a traditional school subject, and the potential of analytical topography is that it promotes teaching through landscape, rather than to landscape. Interest is initiated through a memorable emotional impact with the landscape which stimulates a desire in each child to get knowledge about some aspect of the past or present local social organisation. The relationships between social organisation and the three main divisions of natural economy are presented as a network system in Fig 5.
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Fig 5 Details of relationships between human social organisation and natural economy
10.3 The minimum component for local landscape analysis is a visual stimulus with a wide range of follow-up knowledge, necessary to meet the demands of a wide range of attitudes to the environment, produced when a group of children first make contact with it. By using this information on the various human impacts that have moulded the landscape, a group methodology is instilled. Any landscape may be read comprehensively according to the evidence of past and present origins of landscape, either through geological forces or human landuse as a starter. The resultant heightened awareness of detail and the interdisciplinary confidence gained by individuals working on particular landscape elements, are necessary for compromise in any managerial conflict between environmental specialists.
11 Education To Cope With Change
11.1 In the present world nothing stands still for any length of time. If you miss listening to the radio, viewing television or reading the newspapers for a week, you may be surprised to hear subsequently that a government has changed; that an oil tanker has broken up on rocks and caused beaches to be polluted; that unusually wet weather has resulted in floods in low-lying river valley lands; that the price of coffee has risen yet agan; that an earthquake has caused extensive damage in Asia; and so on.
11.2 But it is not only such newsworthy events that occur. There are also changes which are less obvious unless they are noted after some considerable period of time, such as changes in attitudes, and changes in policies which involve looking at the world in a somewhat different light. These changes are usually linked with new knowledge and its impact through technological change.
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11.3 Change is also a good cross-curricular theme with great flexibility for the project work now demanded of teachers and pupils alike. Derelict landscapes are ideal for pursuing this theme, particularly in the context of world development, and the need to avoid the spatial coincidence of economic activity and environmental deterioration. It focuses sharply on the problem solving approach to teaching about the environment, and deals with a growing requirement of modern education to highlight the importance of coping with many kinds of changes; in the built environment, in climate, and in knowledge, which have repercussions in jobs, in attitudes, and in policies.
11.4 Change as a theme, is also relevant to the proposition, that in our rapidly changing world, children should be taught the skills of modern information handling in order to take a critical, up to date standpoint on many issues which affect their future. It is relevant to the moves towards the provision of individualised, flexible learning environments where computers are used to create 'electronic books'' which may be extended, anotated and abstracted with hypermedia software.
11.5 Finally, one of the more significant results of learning through the real problem- solving approach, is the impact it has on the learning process itself. The approach furnishes a natural objective - the solution of a problem. Children see purpose in their activities and the necessity for reaching and implementing a decision; thus, interest is heightened and intrinsic motivation provided. The approach also permits pupils to share in determining problems to be studied, and in designing activities and procedures to be used in studying them. Moreover, because problem-solving is based upon the process of reflective thinking, children become involved in gathering facts, attaining skills, clarifying value systems and choosing from alternative solutions. Finally, the approach encourages children to do further research and to develop better work habits and study skills.
11.6 Basically it starts with the proposition that in our rapidly changing world, children should be taught the skills of modern information handling in order to take a critical, up to date standpoint on many issues which affect their future. It meets another requirement of modern education which is to highlight the importance of coping with many kinds of changes, in the built environment, in climate, and in knowledge, which have repercussions in jobs, in attitudes, and in policies.
12 Solving Real Problems
12.1 The problem-solving approach to learning is by no means a new idea. It has been with us throughout the twentieth century. Traditionally, problem-solving as an approach to learning has been concerned with problems for which solutions have already been found, by professionals in a given discipline through individual or group research.
12.2 For example, 'How can farmers in the the Scottish Lowlands adjust to problems of too much rainfall during a given year or over a period of years?' is a vital problem to Scottish farmers and to professional agronomists who have researched that problem. It is not an immediate 'real' problem however to school-children, albeit an important one to be studied in a geography class. It might become a problem if there
Contents p 197 Edition June 1, 2008 ever became a shortage of food due to inclement weather conditions or high prices. But the problem in school would be a different one, such as 'How can I help my parents increase our family food supply?'
12.3 Two essential characteristics distinguish real problems from discipline- orientated or academic problems. First, real problems arise from areas of concern to children which produce tensions that can be resolved only by solving the problem in a satisfying manner. Second, they involve the choice of a course of action from among two or more possible solutions. In other words a real problem is one for which an acceptable course of action requires the gathering of accurate and reliable information. This means becoming acquainted with the accumulated knowledge in the area of concern, analysing all available information relevant to the problem, identifying satisfactory outcomes from among several possible solutions dependent on one's value systems, and putting the accepted solution into action. Even then, there will be honest and sincere differences of opinion, because individuals and groups have different value systems, and hence draw different conclusions from the same data and analytical methods, and even from the several proposed solutions.
12.4 The real problem-solving approach when used as a basis for selecting and organizing curriculum materials and learning experiences, is in reality the application of reflective thinking to local social problems which emerge relatively rapidly through some kind of change in the local environment
12.5 In this thinking process, five phases are commonly recognized:
1. Feeling confused or perplexed, or sensing being blocked in one's action.
2. Intellectualizing the confusion, perplexity or blockage into a problem to be solved; that is, recognizing the problem, or challenge as it may be called.
3. Formulating one hypothesis after another as leads in searching for factual material which will resolve the doubt, settle or dispose of the perplexity or blockage according to the value system of the problem-solvers .
4. Deciding which offers the best possible solution from among several.
5. Evaluating the solution by overt action, and accepting the conclusions if the action results agree with those rationally deduced, or reject the results if they do not. 12.6 Reflecting on these five phases, it is obvious that problems which have already been solved, or which have ceased to be troublesome, do not produce a social tension and are not, therefore, real problems. It is just as obvious that problems selected for class consideration must be contemporary and real for the learner, and that they must be problems for which courses of action can be immediate, direct and overt. Many of the solutions may require action by the community in which the learners live. Nevertheless, today's problems have their roots in the past, although the historical perspective is reached from a stimulus in the present.
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13 Problems Produced by Change
13.1 The real problems produced by change will have been experienced by all teachers when they moved from home to college. All individuals are thrust, from time to time, into new social groups or situations. Coming to school for the first time is one such occasion; so is moving from one locality to another, or shifting from one school to another within the same town or city. Feelings of confusion or perplexity are aroused, and the individual must intellectualize the confusion or perplexity into a problem to be solved.
13.2 Secondary level classes can be challenged to find a solution to this real problem: 'How can we help new children when they enter our school for the first time?' It should be kept in mind that different solutions to such a problem may, and probably will emerge, depending on one's cultural setting. Children throughout the world find it difficult to adjust to new social groups. How to meet the challenge of doing so is a real problem for them. Note that real problems most often begin with, 'How can we (or l) . . .'
14 Rationale For Solving Real Problems
14.1 What is the rationale for introducing the real problem-solving approach into teaching about change in the environment? At least three reasons may be advanced.
14.2 First, it is becoming increasingly clear that problem-solving abilities are essential for citizens of all nations in a rapidly changing world, be they highly developed or developing. Although many have written on this subject, the broad purpose is perhaps best summed up by John W. Gardner in his book, No Easy Victories (Gardner 1969). He states that nations have the capacity to create new problems as rapidly as their old ones are solved. Individuals or groups are called upon constantly, to improvise solutions to problems they won't recognize until tomorrow. This need not be so.
14.3 Throughout the world, the only formal mechanism available for educating future citizens in the skills of problem-solving is the school. It follows, therefore, that problem-solving to cope with change should be a significant proportion of the school programme.
1544 Almost seven decades ago, John Dewey (1916) wrote:
'If there is special need of educational reconstruction at the present time ... it is because of the thoroughgoing change in social life accompanying the advance of science, the industrial revolution, and the development of democracy. Such practical changes cannot take place without demanding an educational re-formation to meet them, and without leading men to ask what ideas and ideals are implicit in these social changes, and what revisions they require of the ideas and ideals which are inherited from older and unlike cultures.'
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This statement is as true today as it was in 1916.
14.5 A second reason for incorporating the solution of real problems in teaching- learning experiences is related to the child. The approach is functional in that it is built upon the needs and interests of children, and is designed to help them adjust to life situations. In a real problem-solving situation, as a child or a group of children develop a solution, they are required to examine their individual values as well as the values of others. In turn, value systems affect their sensitivity to other problems. Children who have developed an awareness of their values as they optimize a solution, are on better ground to support what they conclude. They are aware of the extent to which the solution is based on subjective rather than objective data.
14.6 Realization of Deewy's goal does not call for the revamping of our educational system, to produce a different product. Confidence in meeting change can come from matching curriculum objectives to the more important local changes that are affecting the environment of the school.
15 Criteria For Judging Suitability Of Problems
15.1 Some criteria are helpful in judging the suitability of the problems to be selected for consideration.
First, problems should be selected with the needs and interests of a particular group of children in mind. What may be a problem for one group may not be for another; or what may be a problem for one time or place may not be a year later or in another locale. This calls for flexibility in programme planning.
Second, children should have a part in the selection of problems for which they are to find solutions, and in the development of activities and procedures to be used in solving them. This criterion is based on the premise that a problem is not a problem to children if they do not perceive it as such.
Third, a problem selected for consideration should involve the choice of a course of action from among two or more possible solutions, thereby calling decision-making techniques into play.
Fourth, the problem selected should be sufficiently common and recurrent to justify consideration by the whole class or a major portion of it. Problems which concern only an individual or a very small group of children do not meet this criterion. Likewise, problems which are of only immediate and passing interest are also of doubtful value, although such interests may be capitalized on to stimulate a broader interest. The problem of, 'How can we arrange our desks to hold a committee meeting?' may be an immediate problem for a class, but it would not meet the criterion proposed for a class challenge. However, the fact that there is a blockage to better interaction between children, might lead to a broader problem, 'How can our classroom be better
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managed to meet our needs?' These two challenges would certainly meet the criteria of commonality and recurrence.
Fifth, problems should be significant enough to warrant class contribution. The most important problems are those which facilitate the development of an understanding of issues of major concern to the largest number of people. 'How can we develop and incorporate non- polluting habits into our day-to-day living?' is a problem significant enough to warrant consideration. Or, 'How can the recreational facilities for young children in our neighbourhood be improved?' also meets this criterion.
Sixth, problems need to be suited to the maturity of the children. However, this is often not so much a criterion for selecting a problem as of treating the problem and materials used in studying it. In fact, as illustrated, the same problem may be studied profitably by the same group of children at different levels. In general, those which are associated with one's family, school and immediate neighbourhood are better suited to young children, but not always, whereas those which relate to a larger community (state, nation, world) are more complex and are better suited to adolescents. Intermediate-grade children might become involved in designing a better school playground, whereas college-age children are more directly concerned about renewing a part of the larger community.
Seventh, problems selected should be ones for which adequate and suitable materials are readily available. Many difficulties are encountered due to permitting classes to tackle problems for which there are not adequate library or community resources, or for which data cannot be collected. This leads to superficial teaching and to empty verbalizations. It prevents critical thinking based on sound research and dependable knowledge. Thus, before permitting a problem to be selected for class work, the teacher needs to survey the resources of the school and community, to make sure that adequate materials will be available to children. Caution must be exercised however, in applying this criterion, for to adhere too strictly to it may deny children opportunities to find out for themselves that some problems are much more difficult to solve than others.
Eighth, problems which children consider as real are commonly not within the domain of a single discipline. Rather, skills, concepts and processes from a variety of disciplines are involved in solving real problems. To explain spatial behaviour, or to understand and analyse the location of some event or the distribution over space of like phenomena, children must call upon knowledge generated in other disciplines - the earth sciences, economics, sociology, anthropology, history, political science, to name just a few. As a result, the real problem-solving approach does not often fit very well into a single discipline. There is a necessity for rearranging class schedules, sometimes drastically, if real problem-solving experiences are to be
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provided. This is likely to be truer at the upper levels of instruction than in the lower grades.
Ninth, problems to be solved should be selected in the light of previous educational accomplishments of the children. It is important for teachers to analyse previous experiences, in order to note gaps in the children' backgrounds; furnish leads and clues for the selection of future problems; and guard against unnecessary duplication of problems studied in previous years. It should be kept in mind however, that if not handled with care, too much planning can lead to a contrived and artificial setting. Problems should arise naturally and spontaneously, based upon child needs or experiences. Teachers must be alert to possibilities as they occur. To force an issue, in order to fill some gap, warps the process.
16 Examples of Real Problems
16.1 Although real problem-solving requires the application of skills, concepts and processes from many disciplines, they nearly always grow out of the traditions in geography which William Pattison (1964) has so clearly defined: (1) the earth science tradition; (2) man-land tradition; (3) the area studies tradition; (4) the spatial tradition. Before identifying real problems in each of these traditions, their unique contributions to the study of geography might well be outlined.
At one time in the history of geography its content was highly weighted in favour of topics now included in the study of the natural sciences. It was to geography that other scholars and the lay public looked for information about landforms, the waters of the earth, the atmosphere surrounding the earth and the association between the earth and the sun. When one studied geography, one expected, in addition to learning where places were, to become informed about the natural environment in which man lived, and how this environment differed from place to place. This tradition still lives on, but environmental studies today are increasingly the province of teachers trained in science rather than in geography.
Traditionally, geographers have been given to exploring man/environment problems. This concern with man/land relationships still persists, and is in fact increasing as a result of man's concern over the deterioration of the environment and the growing scarcity of natural resources. Geography is no longer adequate to present the total body of knowledge. Currently, much research in biology is concerned with man's perception of, attitudes towards and his effects upon, natural conditions. In like manner, there has been in recent years an increase in the scheduling of courses involved with man/natural environmental interactions from ecological and medical points of view. Nevertheless the man-environment tradition is a useful focal point.
The third tradition in geography, sometimes referred to as the regional tradition, is concerned with characterizing particular places, be they nation-states, world regions or social areas within cities. This tradition reached its apogee in the late 1930s and during the decade of the 1940s. Geographers looked upon themselves as synthesizers of knowledge about particular areas, and felt called upon to interpret the personality
Contents p 202 Edition June 1, 2008 of these areas or regions, as their responsibility. The demand for such intelligence cannot be disputed. Man has always been interested in the world beyond his immediate vision. Explorers, discoverers, statesmen and general laymen have been interested in the nature of places, their unique characteristics and attributes.
Regional courses and research have long been a hallmark of scholarship in our discipline. Today we have geographers who are not only interested in advanced nations, but in what is often referred to as Third World areas. They possess the techniques and methodologies for observing, measuring and analysing the distribution and covariance of natural and cultural phenomena within specific parts of the earth's surface, so that they might employ empirical methods of inquiry to the development of holistic, integrative descriptions of these areas. Again the boundaries of regional geography have merged with those of regional biology, sociology and anthropology but the regional focus is dominant.
Turning to the fourth tradition as a basis for defining real problems for study in geography classes, namely the spatial tradition, we find that it is of great interest within the profession at this time. It contrasts sharply in terms of goals, techniques and methodologies with the study of regions.
16.2 As indicated above, regional studies assumed a holistic, integrative approach, focusing on the qualities of particular places and events at particular times, or on changes in these qualities over time. Conclusions drawn from any one specific regional study can be applied only with great care to areas or events differing in their natural or cultural characteristics. Only in a limited number of situations do such studies become suitable building blocks for the understanding of other specific places.
In contrast, the spatial approach attempts to discover how economic, social and political processes are spatially organized, or how outcomes generated by these processes are evidenced at given times and in particular places. This new model for environmental research and instruction was inaugurated in the mid-1950s as a blend of geography and ecology. It was new both in substance and in methods of investigation.
It may be characterized as a more abstract, theoretical approach based on cross- discipline concepts, involving analytical methods of inquiry and leading to the application of theory to the solution of societal problems. It also leads to the development of generalizations that are held to be logically valid about the spatial aspects of a small set of closely defined events, embedded in a wide range of natural and cultural settings. Generalizations may take the form of tested hypotheses, models or theories, and the research is judged on its scientific fit and validity. The aim is to produce knowledge that has predictive value and is useful in understanding reality.
The spatial approach incorporating sociological concepts has proved especially helpful in recent years to the solution of 'welfare' problems. It has produced many theories and models that have been helpful in solving problems such as the delivery of health care; the organization of space to provide better education, as well as in the study of problems such as poverty, unemployment, social disorganization and social injustices, arising from maldistribution of many political, economic and social facilities.
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16.3 It is from these four aspects - the earth-science tradition, the man-environment tradition, the regional study, and the spatial interaction approach - that we can draw problems to challenge learners, across the traditional curriculum, at all levels of instruction, and in all parts of the world. These problems should be real to the learner and drawn from tensions which he or she feels.
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17 Local Weather
17.1 Introducing the problem
The first responsibility of a teacher using the real problem-solving approach is to recognize when a particular problem or challenge, arises. For example, learning how to predict the weather in order to plan some event, or to be properly dressed for it, is a problem for many children in almost all natural and cultural settings. Most children have been disappointed at one time or another by 'bad' weather - a picnic cancelled because of rain, a family outing postponed because of fog and so forth. 'Bad' weather becomes a problem to them. Under such conditions it is natural that the class will ask, 'How can we predict weather so that we might plan when to have our class picnic (or some other event)?' This is known as the direct approach.
A less direct way of introducing the problem of predicting weather may arise during the solution of another real problem. For example, were children trying to solve a traffic problem, they might discover that weather is one of the factors that needs to be considered. This may lead them to the study of weather prediction.
Or, a third way may arise during a class discussion of some other topic in geography. For example, children involved in the study of the geography of their own or some other community, may become interested in an investigation of local weather conditions and their prediction.
The real problem may be stated as follows: 'How can I predict if the weather will change . . . (this afternoon, tomorrow, next weekend)?'
17.2 Suggested class activities
To start off, the teacher might pose the simple question, 'What difference does the weather make to you?' There is sure to be a lively discussion which might include different types of weather, and what help it would be to know ahead of time what the weather will be like.
Following this discussion, the class might be taken outside to observe the weather conditions at a particular time. Several such observations may be made.
Back in the classroom, the children might discuss the things they think make the weather. These might be recorded on the chalkboard or a piece of paper as hypotheses. After such a brainstorming session, the class may decide to work in small groups to investigate certain factors they think are important - the cloud types, temperature, precipitation, pressure, wind speed or direction. The flow chart (Fig. 6a & b)) suggests some of the activities that might take place.
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Fig 6a
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Fig 6b
Motivated by their own experiences and curiosity, some groups may want to construct simple weather instruments; these may be calibrated using local weather data. A few children may decide to check on the records of past weather and the factors present at the time.
Data collected may be presented in several ways, as for example, line graphs. A wind-direction group may make a circular scatter graph. Other scatter graphs may be constructed to compare the data of two groups. Histograms may be plotted to show the number of days it rained or was sunny with certain changes of pressure.
Predictions should be correlated with observations as early as possible in the unit. This might be brought about by the simple question, 'What do you think the weather will be for the game (or some other event) today?' A record should be kept to help correlate weather conditions at one time with actual weather conditions that follow. The class may decide to issue short-range local weather predictions for the school or community. Some competition may be worked out with more professional local weather forecasters!
As the children collect the data and make their observations and predictions, they may see the need for more data or different types of
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data. Other activities may include the comparison of the children's measurements with the weather forecaster's measurements, or the introduction of another factor such as high- and low-pressure areas on which to base their predictions. Class discussions and informal discussions with other children may determine possible improvements to their predictions and information necessary for documentation.
17.3 Action based on solution to problem
Hopefully, the unit might culminate in some action. The children might set up a weather station in school and post day-to-day weather predictions. Or, they may write up predictions for the school newspaper.
17.4 General comments on problem
The problem of predicting weather has been tried out successfully, at levels from of 7-8-year-olds to 13-14 year-olds. It is a problem that might also be developed with secondary school children (14-18-year-olds). From logs submitted by teachers who have developed these challenges, a rather lengthy list of activities may be compiled. These include the following:
17.5 Introduction of challenge
1. Discussion of weather including children's personal experiences with it. 2. Observing of weather conditions using only the five senses.
. Organizing into groups and discussion of tasks
. Construction activities associated with weather instruments
1. Wind-measuring instruments. 2. Thermometer. 3. Coffee-can barometer.4. Mineral-oil barometer. 5. Hair hygrometer. 6. Comb nephoscope. 7. Sling psychrometer. 8. Balances to measure relative humidity. 9. Mini weather station.
17.6 Data collection and representation activities
1. Listening to TV and radio weather reports for data on weather variables.
2. Instrument readings - rain-gauge, thermometer, sling psychrometer, hair hygrometer, balance to measure relative humidity, and weather balloons.
3. Weather maps, national and local.
4. Construction of charts, bar, line and scatter graphs and peg-board graph (used in discussion of correlation).
5. Calculating averages.
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17.7 . Prediction activities 1. Discussion of application of data to weather prediction. 2. Comparison of weather bureau prediction and 'actual' weather. 3. Short-term prediction. 4. Long-term prediction. The problem may be extended by having children compile monthly charts of measurements of the different variables in weather predicting, i.e. precipitation, cloud cover, humidity, wind speed, barometric pressure. In this way they could observe weather conditions at various times of year, and predict weather in different seasons.
17.8 Finally, as suggested in the list of activities, learning how to predict weather will lead children to examine local weather maps that appear in daily newspapers. From time to time throughout the year the teacher might call the attention of the class to particularly interesting weather phenomena, and have the class discuss reasons for them.
18 Community Use of Materials and Energy
18.1 Introducing the problem
Societies throughout the world are facing problems growing out of their relations to the natural environment - problems related to the growing scarcity of energy sources, the depletion of natural materials, waste disposal, air and water pollution, the ample supply of food and the despoliation of one's living environment for children. By studying aspects of the energy crisis, children can see where humanity has been, where it is now and where it might be going. The problem to be solved may be stated as follows: 'How can I (or the people of my community) use energy more wisely?' It should be borne in mind however, that the precise nature of the energy crisis may change from year to year, consequently what follows may need to be adapted to new circumstances (see Fig. 7a & b).
18.2 Suggested class activities
The specific learning experiences used in solving this problem will depend, of course, on the age levels and backgrounds of the children. A series of instructional modules have been developed by the Primary Environmental Education Project at the University of Georgia (USA) appropriate for 6-, 7-, and 8-year-olds, under the codirection of Everett T. Keach, Jr, and Elmer D. Williams. The purpose of this project was to develop and field test nine instructional modules designed as supplementary material for a primary-level social studies programme. The nine modules are as follows:
Support for Man's Activities Rocks and Soils Water Air Solid Waste Disposal Water Pollution Air pollution
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A class might be asked to discuss the principal uses of materials and energy in their community, and the environmental consequences of their use. Four such uses are commonly recognized: transportation, industrial, commercial and residential.
In the followng example the challenge has been carried out by concentrating on energy. After this the connections may be traced between energy use, materials consumption and pollution.
The kinds and amounts of energy consumed by each of these four principal users. Children will discover that these will fall into three categories (l) energy from fossil fuels (coal, petroleum and natural gas); (2) energy from the sun (solar power, fuel wood, food, direct wind and water power and hydroelectric power); (3) nuclear energy (clean power generation, including problems of nuclear waste disposal?)
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Fig 7a
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At this point, the class may form committees to investigate each of these types of energy, its long-term strengths and weaknesses as an energy source and its effect on the local community or nation. Special attention might be given by the committees to the location of energy sources, as for example, the sources of fossil fuels in their nation and the world. The reports might include how deposits of coal, petroleum or natural gas were formed and describe present mining techniques. Following presentation of the reports, the class might discuss such questions as, 'What are the benefits to mankind derived from nuclear power generation?' or 'What harm might result from nu
Fig 7b
T
18.3 Solving the problem
As children proceed with their analyses, they will discover that in talking about the energy crisis, most people have in mind problems concerning the production and consumption of petroleum and petroleum products, especially motor fuel and fuel oil. These are the fossil fuels that supply much of the energy needs of both the industrial and Third World nations. All of these nations, except Russia, Nigeria, Indonesia and Venezuela, currently consume more oil than they produce. They depend upon oil-rich nations, many of which are located in the Middle East, to satisfy their needs. Many of the subsequent class activities might focus, therefore, on such questions as:
1. Can the oil-consuming nations work co-operatively with the oilrich nations to form a common energy policy?
2. Can the oil-consuming nations'cut down on the amount of energy they consume?
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3. Can the oil-consuming nations increase their supply of energy by using oil resources more efficiently, by developing proven reserves or by discovering new sources?
4. Can oil-consuming nations utilize other forms of energy - natural gas, coal, falling water, nuclear power?
5. Can oil-consuming nations develop new sources of energy?
Committees might be appointed to work on each of these questions. A variety of activities might be undertaken by each of these groups. For example, the committee assigned to study ways in which oil- consuming nations might work co-operatively with oil-rich nations to form a common energy policy, might do some role-playing. Each committee member might represent a particular country including two or more highly industrialized nations, at least two oilrich nations, and two or more nations from the Third World, that do not have adequate supplies of petroleum. Nations which might be represented are Saudi Arabia, Libya, Great Britain, France, the United States, Japan, the USSR, Ghana and India. These representatives might meet at a conference to draw up a plan for working together co-operatively. The rest of the class might serve the representatives as 'resource personnel', supplying members with data to support their stands. They will need to consult newspapers, journals, magazines, reference books and people available in their community. If a stalemate arises in the conference, several outcomes are possible. For example, the industrial nations might not agree among themselves and each might then seek unilateral agreements with the oil-rich nations. Or, the industrial nations might quarrel among themselves and leave the conference. Or, the oil-rich nations might join with the Soviet Union to confront the industrial nations with an ultimatum. How the representatives work will depend on their attitudes, knowledge of the situation and willingness to compromise.
The committee studying the possibility of using less energy, might conduct a survey on what their classmates would be willing to do to cut down on the amount of energy they consume. The questionnaire would include equipment used in the home, at school, to transport goods and people. The results of this survey might be discussed with the class as a whole.
The committee charged with studying the substitution of other forms of energy (coal, falling water, nuclear power, natural gas) for petroleum might debate such issues as: 'Industrial nations should use more of their coal resources to meet the energy challenge', or 'The industrial nations should solve the energy shortage by developing more nuclear power plants'.
The committee assigned to investigate new sources of energy might direct their attention to the development of solar power, energy from
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the rocks beneath the surface of the earth (geothermal energy), more use of wind power or the use of osmotic power developed where rivers flow into the oceans. Yet another source of energy the committee might investigate is the recycling of solid waste materials, or garbage.
As a concluding activity, the class might write, 'An energy manifesto', designed for their homes or school, local community or their nation.
19 Mobilising Communities for Change
19.1 Introducing the problem
Most regional studies customarily emphasize the natural setting of areas and their economic development or land-use. Quite often their social characteristics are overlooked or only briefly alluded to, despite the fact that social well-being is a matter of real concern. Therefore, the problem to be studied might be phrased as follows:
'How can I change the social characteristics of (my country, or some other part of the earth's surface) for the better?'
Social well-being in an area is generally defined in terms of selected social indicators, which appear as the result of the community and/or its environment changing for the worse.
Seven of these are commonly accepted as appropriate criteria: the economic well- being of a place (its wealth, per capita income, and employment status); its health conditions (both physical and mental); its provision of education; the living environment (housing conditions, air and water pollution, resource base); the degree of social organization or disorganization; the degree of participation or alienation of individuals or groups; the quantity and quality of recreational facilities (see Fig. 8).
19.2 Suggested class activities
The problem may be introduced by having children discuss what they consider to be the 'best' kind of community in which to live. The discussion may take the form of 'brainstorming', with each child listing characteristics that come to mind without discussing them at length. As traits are mentioned, they might be recorded on the chalkboard or a large sheet of paper. After the list has been compiled, the class might be led to group the items in terms of the seven indicators listed above.
Committees may now be formed to study each of the several indicators as they pertain to the place or area selected for study. If it is their own community, data might be gathered by fieldwork. For example, schools might be located on maps, and if possible the home location of each child in the several schools might be indicated. If the problem is being
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explored by a class in a large city, the 'community' may be defined as part of the total city.
The committee studying alienation and participation might undertake to examine voting behaviour in the community. What percentage of the eligible voters in their community exercise their voting privileges? What parts of the community, or precincts, exhibit the greatest turn-out of voters? The least? The committee might seek reasons for the differences.
Perhaps another committee might find out more about crime (a form of social disorganization). Maps showing the location of different types of crime within the community might be compiled. Reasons for the distributions might be hypothesized.
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Fig 8
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Still another committee might study the recreational facilities available to the citizens of the local community (the state, nation or some other part of the earth). Again, the play areas and facilities might be mapped to see how accessible they are to all citizens of the community. Recreational facilities for various age groups might be investigated - the elderly, families, teenagers or very young children.
Growing out of these investigations of the seven social indicators of a community's well-being, the class might become aware of problems that need to be solved. For example, some parts of the community may not have recreational areas readily accessible to young children. Or, robberies may be high in some parts of the community. How can they be stopped? Or, it may be discovered that the community, or certain areas within it, do not receive adequate health care. Doctors, nurses or health care centres may be scarce. What might be done to correct the situation?
19.3 Action based on solution of the problems
As committees present their findings to the class, children may be permitted to discuss the reports. Solutions to the problems presented by the committees might be advanced. Action programmes might be discussed. For example, the class might draw up a plan for improved recreational facilities to present to their local governmental representatives. Or, discussion of areas of high crime rates - thefts, homicides and so forth - might lead to a community campaign to lessen the number of crimes. The class might draw up a list of things that families or the community officials might do.
Instead of working on all seven aspects of social well-being, the class may decide to select one of the social indicators and put their full effort behind a programme for improving that particular social condition.
Where larger areas are selected for study - a state, the nation or another nation in the world - the basic geographic unit of measure would need to be discussed. For one's state, data could be collected on a county basis. For the nation, state or provincial data would be suitable. The geographic scale becomes important in determining the type of data to collect, the presentation of the data and the conclusions reached.
It should be kept in mind that the smaller the geographic scale (that is, the larger the unit area), the less likely it becomes for action programmes to be initiated as a result of the solutions advanced. The chances of 'improving' social conditions of a nation, are less than correcting some social condition at the neighbourhood or community level. On the other hand, nationwide movements do get started at community levels!
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20 Travelling Through The Home Landscape
20.1 Introducing the problem
Young and older people alike are often faced with the problem of getting from one place to another. Thus, children of all ages may respond enthusiastically to this challenge, as they discuss problems they face in getting around their community.
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Fig 9a
Through a study of 'getting there', learners can be introduced to such concepts as nodes, networks, transportation flows, public and private means of transporting goods and people, and a host of other important
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concepts related to the way their local community is organise. They may then decide to work in small groups on different aspects of the problem. The real problem may be stated as follows: 'How can I (we) get most safely, (rapidly, cheaply) from A to B .
For older groups the problem may be in getting from one locality to another, or from rural to urban centres, and so forth (see Fig. 9 a & b.).
Fig 9b
20.2 Suggested class activities
The class may wish to survey the opinions of other children about the problem and its possible solutions. As a pre-survey this will help them decide which tasks should they should undertake first and what data they need to collect.
Some 12-year-old children worked on this problem by finding ways to use public transportation for field trips. They chose possible sites for these excursions and investigated routes, costs and schedules of public transportation. Several classes in the school found this information useful, and so it was put into a booklet to help future projects.
In another school children worked on the problem of finding ways to get from their area into town and back. One of their proposed solutions was the construction of bicycle paths. When initial information had been gathered on possible routes and costs, the children called the local government office to determine what had to be done next. The commissioner agreed to meet with the class and discuss their proposal. Following a presentation by the children, the commissioner listed what had to be done if the children were serious about their bicycle path proposal.
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The children in the class then acted upon the commissioner's suggestions. The class scheduled a presentation to the full panel of commissioners. To this meeting they brought petitions in support of a bicycle path, and maps of their proposed routes. In addition, they presented background information on their activities and answered any questions raised by the panel of commissioners. The commissioners seemed impressed with their presentation and ordered the county engineer to conduct a feasibility study of the bike path.
Activities involved in collecting and presenting data provide opportunities for fieldwork, making surveys, compiling maps and charts, taking photographs and writing reports. Stimulating questions for which answers might be sought include:
Do you have trouble getting around the community? Why? Are routes and places clearly marked?
Are directions available for getting to important places? How do you get around in your community?
How do you feel when you get lost?
How could you find out whether others have trouble getting around the community?
Can you make it easier for yourself and others to get around in the community?
Why do you travel from A to B your way?
As children become involved in this problem, opportunities will arise for the teacher to test children's perception of distances and the relative location of places, and to help children develop more accurate notions about these spatial characteristics of a community. In this way children will come to develop better mental maps of familiar areas, and eventually conceive distances, directions and relative locations better when using maps of unfamiliar areas and places.
20.3 Action based on solution to problem
Depending on the aspect of the problem which a class has elected to explore, several solutions might evolve. For example, one class of children aged 14-16 years investigated the problem of getting to and from school by bus. This is a challenge that confronts children in most large cities, in rural areas where regional community schools are in existence, and in medium-sized cities as well.
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Solutions included:-
- the better location of pick-up sites; - the need for dry and heated pick-up sites during the winter season; - the development of rules and regulations governing children riding on buses; - the need for small buses to pick up fewer children living at long distances from school; - and larger buses to pick up children living nearer the school.
By having a mixture of different-sized buses, it was proposed that the smaller buses could become 'express' buses once they had picked up children living furthest from the school. The children riding these buses would not have to spend so much time getting to and from school.
Note has already been made that one class requested its county commissioner to study the problem of developing a bicycle path, so that children could ride bicycles more safely to and from school.
Another class discovered that the flow of traffic could be modified by introducing one-way streets near their school, and thereby make it easier for children to walk to and from their classes. Still another class proposed changes in bus routes and bus schedules to meet certain needs for getting around their community.
Growing out of these studies, children gain an understanding of concepts such as accessibility of places relative to each other and of intervening obstacles to travel. They also become more aware of why they travel from one place to another. They might discover that their needs could be satisfied by travelling to alternative places, providing intervening obstacles were removed, or public transportation routes or schedules changed.
In this day of shortages and high costs of petrol, it is important that children, their parents and fellow citizens, find new solutions to the problem of 'getting around' their community or in travelling from their community to another.
21 The Teacher In Problem-solving
21.1 The implementation of real problem-solving teaching strategies as set forth in the four examples presented in this chapter, raises a very important question - one which in itself is a 'real' problem. 'How can teachers be prepared to handle this type of instruction?'
21.2 From the four challenges presented, it can be deduced that teachers need to handle both directed and discovery learning situations. In their role in managing real problem-solving, teachers will be called upon to serve as co-ordinators and
Contents p 222 Edition June 1, 2008 collaborators rather than as directors or authoritative answer-givers. In their preparation, they will need experiences that will provide the understanding and abilities to enable them to:
1. Be alert to the 'real' problems confronting their children and to introduce problems to be solved in a meaningful way.
2. Act as a co-ordinator and collaborator. Assist, not direct, individuals or groups of children as they investigate different aspects of the problem.
3. Permit the children to become involved in the problem and in carrying out in-depth investigations, by asking questions which stimulate thoughtfulness.
4. Be patient in letting children make mistakes in finding their own way. Offer assistance or point out sources of help for specific information, only when a child reaches the point of frustration in the approach to the problem.
5. Make any necessary arrangement for fieldwork, interviews with peers or community resources and for collecting data.
6. Provide frequent opportunities for group reports and child exchanges of ideas in class discussions. Permit children to examine procedures critically, improve or set new directions in their investigations.
7. End the class's general participation in studying problems when child interest or the overall accomplishments of the class in finding and implementing solutions to the problem, indicate a lack of further interest.
8. If motivated, permit some children to continue work on a voluntary basis on one problem while the rest of the class begins to identify possible approaches to another.
22 Aids To Information Handling
22.1 Some of the basic ideas which shape the theory of real problem solving instruction might be noted. For example, several developments in the biological and behavioural sciences have to do with the solution of problems by making models delineating the flow of information between the major elements which govern their interactions. Among these are cybernetics, general systems theory, information theory, pattern recognition theory, decision theory and game theory.
22.2 General systems theory involves a goal, purpose or function that is served, and the components that are interacting to achieve these objectives. Thus, given a problem, an attempt is made to reproduce or simulate in a schematic and simplified way the situation, retaining those variables and conditions, which are relevant to the problem, and overlooking all other details.
22.3 When viewing man as an information-processing system has prompted learning theorists to ask different kinds of questions about how people solve problems, make decisions and think creatively. The model of man as an information-processing
Contents p 223 Edition June 1, 2008 system, focuses attention, therefore, on processes, and requires a rigorous identification of the stages through which man moves in this cognition of the environment. Computer models are obviously important in handling the ramifications of even the simplest environmental problem.
22.4 In addition to theories drawn from the behavioural sciences, those interested in helping children learn how to solve problems, base their work on theories of learning. Among recent theories of this nature, several give promise of shaping the curriculum and teaching strategies of the future. For example, Piaget and his colleagues have identified four stages of intellectual maturation, through which they believe children pass as they grow towards maturity. His work serves as a guide for the selection of examples or exercises used, to help the child learn problem-solving procedures.
22.5 But all the theorizing that has been done is for naught unless some linkage is developed between theory and practice. The question arises: 'Is classroom instruction making use of advances in theory?' Unfortunately, many modern theories related to problem-solving have been unnoticed and untested by practitioners in the classroom. The most dramatic changes are probably reflected in the wider use now given to the case-study approach, and to the active interest in games and simulation. Still other teaching strategies rely heavily on the idea that the learner generates his own knowledge, and that this process of knowledge-generation occurs as the result of the learner's encounter with a baffling or unresolved - that is, problematic question or situation. This is the approach that has now been discussed.
23 Community and Environmental Action Plans
23.1 Local government planning exists to solve community problems, but it was only in 1969 that central government, in the Skeffington report "People and Planning", recommended the setting up of machinery for the public to participate in planning and the teaching of planning in schools. From this time it became urgent to find methods of involving the proletariat actively from grass roots in questions of environmental policy.
The objective of the following sections is to demonstrate how community conservation initiatives may be coordinated, by promoting computer literacy as a means of helping people to deal with local environmental and conservation issues, thereby raising local levels of IT skills.
23.2 An environmentally conscious society will not be created by passing legislation and developing environmental protection policies based on scientific soundness and sociological platitudes. Preservation of a quality environment will only become a reality if we can develop broad citizen understanding of the short-range and long- range objectives of sound environmental management, and citizen acceptance of the personal commitment necessary to achieve those objectives. The gap between goals and actuality is the one to be filled by a local environmental knowledge system, which not only includes information about heritage and ecological management, but also about the organisation of society and methods of government in decision making.
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This was the perception of Patrick Geddes a century ago, who defined environment as the result of an interaction between 'place', 'work' and 'folk'. He proposed that education and the exercise of citizenship go hand in hand, bound by an environmental philosophy, and should be expressed practically in the methods of civic and regional surveying. Unfortunately Geddes' civic orientation of environmental education came to be mistaken as a synonym for "ecological conservation education", and its community impact became dissipated in a multitude of overlapping approaches.
23.3 There has been little progress toward the kind of community education that is needed. There are some excellent programmes available; but these represent only segments of a continuum - only segments, because most of the programmes and materials so far produced have stemmed from some individuals' or groups' need to promote their interests. The materials, however well-intended, are in essence public relations materials, not the open-ended total-systems approach needed to educate the public about their environment and its interacting, interrelated problems.
At the other end of the education spectrum, academic courses have not produced the action-education necessary for people to use their knowledge as community volunteers. This, coupled with the fact that professional people tend to move away from the places where they were born, leaves communities bereft of skilled people with a commitment to the local environment.
23.4 By far the greatest need is for community perception to be developed for citizens to operate effectively in an integrated spatial and temporal context. A local environment is a set of spatial relationships presenting a mosaic of past decisions taken by private individuals, organisations and public bodies. Yet they are considered to be given and immutable. To counteract this, the environment has to be expressed dynamically in terms of time charts, maps and plans. In this context it has been proposed that graphicacy is a necessary complement to education for literacy and numeracy. There is also a need for elementary environmental literacy (ecosacy?) so that individuals can read their environment by categorising its more significant landscape elements.
Finally, lack of cultural roots, either by ignorance of family history, or inward migration, is also a major factor leading to lack of environmental awareness. Here, the encouragement of archive skills to provide genealogies and publicise the detailed impact of local history, would help bond people to their landscape, and thereby heighten sensitivity to change.
24 National Enquiries and Influential Publications
24.1 The early 1970s are in many ways a point of reference. The Town and Country Planning Act of 1971 made public participation a statutory requirement for planning authorities, In the same year the Town and Country Planning Association launched the Bulletin of Environmental Education (BEE) In the first issue, Michael Storm urged adoption of a conflict-centred curriculum for environmental studies. This was more concerned with pressure groups and the mechanisms of environmental decision making than with the mere recording of existing landuse.
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24.2 In 1972 came the Government Report on the human habitat "How Do You Want to Live? as a contribution to the United Nations Environmental Conference in Stockholm. It stressed that the opening up of opportunities for public participation in decision making would be important to the implementation of all future environmental policies. It demanded an an environmental education aimed at developing local sociobiological conceptual pictures, based on a critical, moral and aesthetic awareness of our surroundings".
24.3 A person's surroundings consists of a world of objects and a world of values. The moral purpose of environmental education is therefore to enable citizens to relate to the objects, and understand the values. The Stockholm report linked this task to a form of civic education leading to a more advanced environmental consciousness, which could be expressed through using the political processes governing the creation of the human environment.
24.4 There can be no doubt that the need for awareness and participation in environmental decision making by the public is generally recognised. Jean Forbes, writing in BEE, defined the necessary community centred education as "the study of the activities of people in relation to the physical world around them, and the study of the socio-political institutions (e.g. the statutory planning system), which regulates this relationship in the interests of society as a whole"
Years have passed but it is still urgent to establish local environmental awareness programmes concerned with improving environmental quality, aesthetically, culturally, physically, and biologically.
25 Information Capability
25.1 Kevin Harris defined 'information capability' as the level of information in an organisation. It is the sum of INFORMATION AWARENESS, ACCESS TO INFORMATION, and EXPLOITATION OF INFORMATION
- access to resources includes knowledge about resources.
- exploitation of resources includes such skills as relevance judgment, analysis, repackaging of information.
A community's information capability is its capacity to acquire and use information for social and economic development. A community with a high information capacity should have an array of community groups and voluntary agencies, each being aware of information sources relevant to their concerns. Individuals and groups should have established procedures geared-up to using the information. They would be more inclined to make and take opportunities to disseminate information about their own activities.
26 Information Awareness
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26.1 Community projects are often in subject fields where key information may be hard to disseminate. This may be because of the absence of the economies of scale of publishing, or because the information is hard to generate in the first place (e.g. statistics relating to unemployment and health on housing estates). Users are likely to be at a disadvantage because information awareness may be low, information needs unperceived and unclear, suitable resources inaccessible or unknown, and information handling skills undeveloped.
Information awareness is a part of a community's information capability. It is the ability to recognise that problems may be solved and development (personal, community, economic and social ) achieved by accessing and using information. This definition begins with the problem-solving aspect of development, rather than the information. Information awareness amounts to overcoming this difficulty by distinguishing between unperceived, perceived, and expressed needs.
26.2 Relevant information comes from a broad range of resources. It is often informal or semiformal. It may have a short half-life. The need for information is not usually put as a prime objective in community action, i.e. it is not regarded as a direct resource and its acquisition is not costed into the programme. These characteristics coupled with a narrow range of distribution of information from its producers, frequently means that it fails to reach, and attract the attention of particular users.
The level of information in a community is related to the kinds of information media which its members are most accustomed to using. Usually the information acted upon is verbal. Other modes of delivery such as broadcast, electronic and visual make little impact. It is worth noting that a user's perception of information will be different when it is presented in an unusual mode such as via a screen, compared with when the same information is presented in say a library. To this we need to add consideration of the role of serendipity, which is usually described as the art or habit of making happy discoveries. The potential to design information systems, which actually promote serendipity. is often overlooked.
26.3 Technology has a role to play in the second and third elements of information capability . Appropriate use of IT in these areas could greatly enhance an agency's information capability. However, the first element, awareness, is a key aspect which can affect positively or negatively the ability to exploit IT. Consideration of the effectiveness or IT use, implies appreciation of the levels of information awareness.
26.4 In summary, the concept of information capability does not address the questions of how the problem or need for development is recognised and how people recognise that they have an information need. Its importance is as a positive alternative to 'information poverty'. When we speak of information poverty we are referring to low levels of awareness, inadequate access, and undeveloped ability to exploit information. To speak in terms of capability is to avoid labelling, and to recognise that there is a capacity which can be built up. Information handling skills are closely related to information awareness and confidence, and hence to the general problem-solving capacity and development potential of a group or community.
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27 Why Should We Bother?
27.1 People need to bother, firstly because the inadequacies of community life and its underused resources will only be overcome by the community itself. There is no doubt that any community has the skills to do this. But it must first recognise certain facts: that it bows to imperatives which can be changed, and that each individual contribution to the community brings satisfaction to the individual as well as well- being to the community.
In particular, youth must be admitted to that role, for like everybody else, young people need the confidence in themselves which will let them realise their particular skills. Significant among these are initiative, enterprise, energy and ingenuity, all of which can be realised in the service of the community. And like everybody else, young people need the confidence to assert that they do not need constant ministration, only an opportunity to assert their value within the community.
27.2 By designing a sociobiological picture of their community, individuals should get answers to the questions What are the inadequacies and limitations faced by people in our community? 'What are my skills?' 'What have we to offer in our group?' 'How can we apply what we know, in terms of the facilities at our disposal, and the interests we have, for the benefit of others in the solution of local environmental problems.
28 Local Environmental Appraisal
28.1 Ralph Jeffrey, inspired by a book by De Wolfe written in 1964 on Italian towns, was one of the first to advocate a formal system of environmental appraisal to stimulate community participation in local planning. He advocated that this should start with local people making a 'visual enquiry' to establish the local 'spirit of the place' by posing leading questions centred on
- it's spaces; - it's decoration; - it's light - and it's buildings.
28.2 However, it was not until the 1980s that attempts were made to formalise local environmental appraisal. In 1987, based on several hundred village appraisals in England, 'Action for Communities in Rural Areas (ACRE)' and 'Common Ground', launched a national promotion funded by the Countryside and Rural Development Commissions. This reached Wales in 1988 under the name 'Jigsaw', with the aim of increasing the awareness of local communities in the Principality, of issues such as local housing, planning, ecology, culture and heritage. Currently, 'Jigsaw' is based on a local questionnaire designed to make a 'community appraisal', and a 'local map'. The appraisal is a stock-taking of a village, town, or community; its people, its services, facilities, and environment, how it has changed, what is important, what needs improving, and what is lacking. The map is a representation of local feeling about a place, its culture, history, and environment; in other words, its distinctive
Contents p 228 Edition June 1, 2008 character seen through the eyes of local people. It can be a map in the conventional sense, but there are many other imaginative ways of presenting what is really a community knowledge design. Furthermore, this knowledge design does not have to be assembled all at once. It makes organisation sense and often meets the financial realities to take up each major element of the environment in separate thematic campaigns; i.e this year might concentrate on 'infrastructure', next year on 'trees', and the year after on 'water' or 'local history'.
28.3 The value of a Jigsaw campaign is to produce a corporate identity to the community. This means bringing important elements of the community to a common point of focus, which of necessity will involve the delivery of the necessary education and training, to produce a corporate identity.
28.4 Colin and Mog Ball in the mid 70s were the first to champion a community approach to environmental education. What follows is an attempt to extend their view of the connection between community studies and environmental action.
The three main factors limiting the involvement of communities in environmental appraisal, and which require funding a permanent organisation within the community, are:-
- the difficulty of making and sustaining links that have to be established between a relatively small voluntary body, and the permanent organisations providing help, contacts, resources and detailed information;
- the lack of knowledge and confidence in establishing procedures for local volunteers, to participate and act in environmental appraisal schemes;
- the need for data-handling systems associated with a permanent community office (based on the requirements for typing, filing, and telecommunications), to elicit, manage and monitor actions arising from the appraisal.
28.5 The Local Jigsaw booklet, from which a community gets its guidelines to set up a village appraisal, presents the volunteers with an awesome list of the expert skills and contacts they will probably need.
To make their appraisal they will require the help of professionals and experts such as photographers, clergy, doctors, health visitors, designers, local historians, the local school and its children, and policy and planning officers.
To fund their activities they have to persuade the local community council to raise a special rate. They have to make sponsorship requests to local businesses, government agencies and trusts, for grants to maintain their initiative and carry out their action plans for years to come. Although the County Voluntary Council "is first point of contact which allows you to plug into the system", the 'Jigsaw' guide gives 14 regional and national contacts as sources of help, from the "Countryside Commission" to "UK 2000".
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28.6 A particular problem here, is that Jigsaw is not the only initiative aimed at linking communities and environment in Wales. Local environmental improvement grants are provided independently by UK 2000 Cymru and the Prince of Wales' Committee. UK 2000 Wales also gives grants and provides support training, and is a focus for all voluntary environmental groups in Wales. In South Wales, Gwent Community Design operates a questionnaire system with follow up workshops, and the Welsh Natural Economy Research Unit in the National Museum of Wales, supports the establishment of community action groups based on a computer loan scheme, and helps with follow-up sponsorships, to buy a computer for the community.
28.7 This brief account of the complex world of local environmental action, indicates the importance of establishing a firm physical/secretarial base for the community operations which may be described as a community office.
29 Involving Local People
29.1 It has been said that a failure of our schools is that young people emerge from them unaware of the imperatives governing their local environment and the possibility of changing them; most, therefore, although familiar with global environmental issues, have no confidence in their own ability to make local environmental improvements for the benefit of themselves or others.
Colin and Mog Ball put it this way "Whatever we call home, comely cottage or high- rise flat, we live these days in a built environment. Yet although the fields, streets, buildings where we live and work, and even the very air we breathe, are all made by PEOPLE, they have an iron grip on OUR actions. They are the imperatives which define the scope of our lives. Maybe we are just kidding ourselves when we say that we make and shape our environment: for most of us it is the environment which shapes us. This results in the paradox that, as adults, we are controlled, dominated and harassed by the very environment people have created".
29.2 A community design, i.e. 'jigsaw', 'mosaic' 'community map', or 'learning frame' is a conceptual knowledge system produced by the members of the community. It is based on the gathering of local data and information. This is then structured to provide knowledge to encourage 'helping-relationships' between people. In particular, it enables young people, growing up into an adult-made world, to see that it is necessary and possible to change that world.
According to Colin and Mog Ball, the community design is concerned with highlighting these imperatives which limit our lives and the lives of other people, within the small community round about. It is a programme TO ENCOURAGE INDIVIDUALS TO DESIGN THEIR OWN KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM that delineates the places people have made, and the way they and others respond to them.
29.3 A community design starts from the appearance of a local need for environmental knowledge or know-how. It is rooted in the community. The aim is to create a depth of understanding and awareness of their community in individuals, essentially on a personal (and probably emotional) level, which is set in a broad
Contents p 230 Edition June 1, 2008 environmental context. This should broaden personal understanding of environmental concerns and encourage altruism.
Expert assistance has to be available to help the community to design a system to elicit, record, and disseminate information collected and compiled by members of the community. Wherever possible local information is complemented by information from other environments, past, present, and future.
Success is allied to the amount of involvement on the part of local residents. The kinds of involvements required to delineate a community -design are those by which the community can be redesigned by all persons, provided they are aware, confident and knowledgeable enough to do it. Thus, the action plan is closely allied to the levels of local social cohesion and communication skills.
Awareness of those factors which govern our lives and the lives of other people, begins with the mental design of a 'total' view of the community in which one lives. This view must come from individuals in the community, and not from the organisations which plan and manage the environment.
That means everyone must look afresh at data and information about all aspects of community life. These aspects range from how the community originated, how government/non-government agencies and voluntary organisations work, and what aspect of the individual's life they control, to 'on the doorstep' questions, such as, how easy is it to cross the road, how often do the buses run, are there playgroups, where is the playspace, what can you buy in the shops, where do people live, how many people own their homes, how many rent them, what do they pay and is it worth it? It means finding out where people work, and how economic development affects the community, not just through employment, but also through noise, smell and ugliness. It also means looking afresh at the biological features in the community from the point of view of ensuring that, as far as possible, people can become familiar with a good range of habitats and wildlife communities. In this sense every part of a community is an SSSI (A Site of Special Social Interest)
29.4 The data requirements are related to making a community knowledge-design for individuals to answer the questions: 'How does all this affect me - what controls me, what liberates me?' Although many facts and issues are to be discovered, inevitably they will be focussed on the key issues current in any one community. But from that focus a multiplicity of views and angles are possible.
Views will be at first from an individual standpoint, but will then extend to the feelings, and knowledge which other people in the community have about life there. This will give each resident's feelings some place in the overall view, and will certainly reflect issues which, being in a certain category of age and experience, they had not considered.
29.5 As a community design emerges using these methods, there must be an input of experiences from other communities to give bases for comparison. Too often the the 'wheel' is reinvented by communities working in isolation. Every opportunity should be taken to build on the active stance of other groups, and, in particular, to imbibe the confidence of communities that have moved away from a passive stance.
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Local passivity, which has been at the root of many unpleasant social and environmental changes, will disappear in the very action required to design a view of the community, to go out from home or school into other parts of the community and, above all, to communicate with people and organisations.
30 Follow-up Action
30.1 Analysing the complexities of a community to find ways of making improvements, gives people confidence to take an active stance on community issues, and formulate long term planning objectives. However, to those individuals involved in grass roots action, it is clear that the needs for a secretariat have been grossly underestimated in all discussions of sustaining community involvement with environmental problems.
30.2 In reality the needs of even a modestly active group, are more than can be provided by a volunteer secretary using a typewriter and box file. A well equipped secretarial organisation is vital to the efficient gathering and filing of information. The information required will probably be scattered widely in advice bureaus, libraries , record offices, education departments, county educational resource centres, youth and community departments, county voluntary councils, and planning departments. The secretariat will also have to be able to collect and store many different kinds of information such as statistics, maps, and archives, as text, maps, photographs, and sound. It must have the facilities to make reports, a management system to get the best from people with limited time, and trainer/advisors to allow others to use the facility.
31 Building Environmental Care-Communities
31.1 Environmental education does not have validity unless it also involves educating to change the human environment for the better. This involves promoting an understanding of processes and skills by which this can be done, by participating citizens on behalf of their communities. It also requires the presentation of an environmental ethic, and knowledge of the ecological basis of life as a foundation for environmental value judgments. Community education should therefore equip people to answer, and act upon, the following questions; what is good and bad about the environment and why; what is missing from it, and what is superfluous; what could be done to improve it; is it harsh, soft, hostile, friendly, man-scaled, dramatic, relevant to modern lifestyles; what are the factors for change and stability?
31.2 All these objectives could be achieved by the organisation of local community monitoring groups to establish a permanent organisation in their town or village, to foster active participation in local environmental management. Such groups would have the tasks of delineating the needs of the community, and the opportunities for the community to take effective action directly, or by encouraging others to address needs and opportunities identified. A 'community office', preferably with a dedicated microcomputer, would make these tasks much less of a burden to local volunteers.
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31.3 People concerned with local action create groups which quickly generate a need for an 'office'. The problems in establishing and maintaining an office routine can be major limitations in realising local action plans. The proposition is that computer literacy may be strategically developed alongside community offices which arise in response to grass roots activities. A community office, as the centre for community action, would introduce people to the uses of microcomputers for carrying out routine office and community tasks. It would also provide a packaging service to turn public domain information, emanating from local authorities and environmental organisations, into user-friendly databases for local use. These two activities are complementary, in that computer literacy generates a need for appropriate information packs, and vice versa.
The required training would involve wordprocessing, creating databases and spreadsheets, communication by modem, simple desk-top publishing, and the production of elementary information management systems based on hypermedia software. The training programme could be designed so that the skills learned, and confidence gained, would not only be be used in the service of the community to collect and disseminate information of local significance, but also introduce IT skills to members of the community relevant to the job market, and further education.
Suitable software packages would consist of information generated by local people, and that provided by governmental and commercial organisations, such as council minutes, annual reports, structure plans, bulletins and broadsheets. The information would be packaged electronically, using commercial software shells to create user- friendly searchable databases and reporting systems, of value to all individuals in the community.
31.4 The local secondary school offers an ideal base for a community office. It will have the necessary hardware and training skills, and, taking the view that community and school are one, families can focus on the school as a community resource to support environmental appraisals.
31.5 In summary, the success of a community project is allied to the amount of involvement on the part of local residents. It is relatively easy to initiate an environmental appraisal, but to turn this into sustained action is a major problem. Success is closely allied to the levels of local social cohesion and communication skills. Both of these limitations hinge on the community's information infrastructure, which is its major force for making democratic decisions and implementing its plans. Sooner or later, data handling will become a problem, and a community group will have to make a decision to make use of information technology. This could be as simple as making use of the FAX machine in a local shop or office, but is more likely to be whether or not to assemble a mailing list on a home computer. It is far better if a long-term view of the advantages of IT to the group is taken from the start. Tele- communications and microcomputers may then be integrated into the committee structure, and methodologies required for the initial survey, and, more importantly, into the subsequent action plan.
In considering the greater need for information handling skills in communities, it is necessary to appreciate the characteristics and relevance of community information, and the skills required to manipulate it. A microcomputer
Contents p 233 Edition June 1, 2008 can be a great asset to a community project. Indeed, the English Countryside Commission's guide lines for launching an environmental appraisal recommend that the group should have access to a home computer, and software packages have been produced for community appraisals, that members of a community can adapt for their own particular needs. In reality the minimum is a computer fully committed to the project, with an appropriate range of software which all members of the community could put to a wide range of tasks required for a successful follow up to the appraisal. This raises the important question of how many independent computer-based community initiatives are going to be launched, and will they be coordinated or strategically developed.
31.6 In the context of community action a computer is simply a multipurpose management tool, which does more efficiently office jobs formerly requiring a diary, an address book, a filing cabinet, typewriter, ledgers, cashbooks, graph paper, a local resource library, and a stencilling machine. Experience has shown that a microcomputer can act as a point of social focus for a community, because it provides the much needed lasting dimension as an ever-growing archive of local information. In a large community, the best situation would be to have several computers available to all members of the community to cope with the different types of grass roots activities such as, civic involvement in planning; inter-community communication; local enterprise initiatives; environmental action; community studies; a local information centre.
31.7 A design of how the community works can be as simple as a poster which sets out the relationships between the different organisations providing help and services. Such a network design initiates the project. It provides mental 'hooks' upon which to 'hang' basic data and information, such as letters, maps, reports, historical documents, statistical information and pictures. These details fill out the community picture, but the network is returned to as a point of focus and extension. Once the knowledge network has been produced, much can be done to create a model of the community with conventional paper media from broadsheets to boardgames.
Fig 10 A community informatics system producing portable environmental knowledge systems (PEKS) to involve local people in environmental and conservation issues
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Fig 16. A community system for funding training and data packaging.
Sooner or later however the design of a total knowledge system will have to be considered. In its simplest form this will be a filing cabinet to hold data and information, indexed in a way that makes sense to the users. Here the community will encounter its first major difficulty. It is individuals who will use the information in a
Contents p 235 Edition June 1, 2008 very personal way. They will want to rearrange it, make extracts from it, and probably make a personal statement or essay to communicate with other people.
31.8 It is at this point that the community must have a computer. The need for a community computer will probably arrive in any case, with the decision to adopt desk-top publishing for producing and disseminating paper media.
However, a computer with simple software has much more to offer. It can be a set of community tools by which people can assemble data and information and navigate through the complexities of historical processes, administrative hierarchies and action plans. A computer is not essential for the project, but if available it will contribute greatly to its momentum, by facilitating personal involvement of many individuals with a wide diversity of information.
A community computer simply provides ways of looking at large amounts of data and information. It provides windows into documents, maps, pictures and statistics. It also allows the user to select items or parts of items and link them as a personal statement, which can be printed out. Personal statements automatically become part of the community's database. A computer can therefore play a key role in the creation of a community's history, which it also records for posterity.
32 Participating In The 'Local Agenda 21'
32.1 Local Agenda 21 requires full ongoing consultation between local politicians and their planners, with the communities they serve. This consultation must activate as many people as possible to develop neighbourhood action plans, and communication of these plans to local government.
A first approach is to list and structure the questions, and issues, that have to be answered by local people in order to produce an environmental action plan.
The basic question is how can we raise and sustain the quality of life in our community? The agreed list of subsidiary questions, in wording appropriate for different age groups, with their relevant issues, will be expressed as a set of question forms.
32.2 Meaningful community participation in the local Agenda 21 requires:-
- the provision of information that can be understood by everyone to raise awareness of key issues that reduce sustainability of quality of life, and influence attitudes and lifestyles; - the design of tools for gathering local information; - a conceptual framework to assemble this information into a local environmental managaement plan that is owned by the community.
A management plan has to address the important areas which define local sustainable development. These are the areas where central information has to be targeted and local information collected.
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The key areas are:-
- the quality of community life; - the quality of drinking water; - the quality of air; - the diversity of wildlife.
The information-gathering tools are environmental surveys, based on standard community questionnaires applicable to each of the above areas, and a local mapping process to help people locate the places they value and articulate their concerns safeguarding them.
32.3 Learning Structures
Social well-being in an area is generally defined in terms of selected social indicators, which appear as the result of the community and/or its environment changing for the worse. Seven of these are commonly accepted as appropriate criteria and may be used to structure a classroom role play game about urban development:
- the economic well-being of a place (its wealth, per capita income, and employment status);
- its health conditions (both physical and mental);
- its provision of education;
- the living environment (housing conditions, air and water pollution, resource base);
- the degree of social organisation or disorganisation, particularly in relation to family and group social heritage;
- the degree of participation or alienation of individuals or groups;
- the quantity and quality of recreational facilities.
Betterment of the local environment in relation to these criteria means taking three aspects of development policy, the environmental, economic and social, as windows on local change. These aspects are really indivisible and at all times interact and conflict with each other. Nevertheless, they provide distinct starting points for role- play and can form the basis of an interactive computer database for orientation and information gathering.
32.4 The following questions define the local quality of life.
HOUSING
What are the priority areas for improvement with respect to:-
- potential building sites;
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- home running costs - design; - capital cost; - self-build; - availability of houses in rural areas; - integrating commerce and residences in towns?
HEALTH
How can we improve the health of residents and workers with respect to:-
- monitoring; - accident prevention; - drug taking; - local health care; - fitness activities; - health education?
EMPLOYMENT
How can we reduce unemployment without destroying our local environmental resources with respect to:-
- rural jobs; - small workshops; - small craft apprenticeships?
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SERVICES
How can we improve accessibility to basic facilities and services at a low cost to the environment with respect to:-
- maintain green spaces and tree-lined roads; - ensure vandal-free facilities for recreation; - provide meeting places for young people that are their own; - provide entertainment for all age-groups: - ensuring greater availability of local goods for local needs; - identifying local needs that are difficult to access; - improving local services of shops and transport?
NUISANCE
How can we reduce local environmental problems with respect to:-
- litter - noise - odour?
ENJOYING THE ENVIRONMENT
How can we increase public enjoyment of open spaces with respect to:-
- identifying valued features: - improving access and understanding; - valuing features under threat; - evaluating protection methods; - encouraging links with the past; - using methods of art and crafts to express values?
EDUCATION
How can we improve awareness and participation in Agenda 21 with respect to:-
- identifying where education is needed; - devising appropriate educational tools; - improving communication; - taking a systems view of planning; - identifying non-sustainable environmental impacts?
Food
How can we increase production and consumption of local produce?
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COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
How can we get everybody involved in Agenda 21?
BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY
How can we get business and industry to work with the community to:
- produce and implement its local environmental action plan; - persuade people to trust industry to take care of the local environment?
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THE WORLD CONSERVATION STRATEGY
The launch of the World Conservation Strategy in 1980 represents several firsts in nature conservation. It is the first time that governments, non-governmental organizations and experts throughout the world have been involved in preparing a global conservation document. It is the first time that it has been clearly shown how conservation can contribute to the development objectives of governments, industry, commerce, organized labour and the professions. And it is the first time that development has been suggested as a major means of achieving conservation, instead of being viewed as an obstruction to it. (Peter Scott)
1 Unlimited Resources?
1.1 The notion of conservation of living resources— using them in such ways that vital stocks of plants and animals are maintained and their benefits enjoyed by succeeding generations - is not new, but conservation progress has been lamentably slow, largely because it has been seen as peripheral, and sometimes as a hindrance, to mankind's continuing quest for social and economic welfare.
1.2 From the times of the first coal-powered factories and mines it was clear that industrial enterprise was incompatible with nature. Linnaeus, for example, on his Royal fact finding tour of Sweden's natural resources in the late 18th century reported on the poisonous fumes from copper smelters which had destroyed vegetation down- wind of the factories. However, it was not until the middle of the next century that commentators began to agitate for something to be done about the environmental impact of a rapidly developing industrial society.
1.3 This important period of invention and applied science saw vast changes in the appearance of the British countryside. In the main these changes were the application of science, first to allow the mass transport of people, and then to promote the spread of new ideas through personal communication. It is convenient to define this period of rapid socio-environmental change from the opening of the first public railway line1825 to the first experiments in wireless in 1897. People in the first decade of the 19th century would have experienced the benefits of mass production of goods and services brought about by the 'age of steam', and also received overnight news about people and events from the launch of the penny post in 1840. Their children might have used the first public telephone exchange in 1878, and seen the first motor cars in the 1880s.
1.4 Educators and social reformers living during this time of unprecedented change saw the problems, issues and challenges quite clearly. John Ruskin, for example, railed against the ugly impact of tourism on Europe's mountain landscapes, and pollution of the clear mountain streams released by holiday resorts. Charles Kingsley delivered a two-pronged attack on the socio-environmental effects of industrialism in
Contents p 241 Edition June 1, 2008 a sermon preached in 1870 when he spoke of 'human soot' as a by-product of competitive investment in mass-production.
"Capital is accumulated more rapidly by wasting a certain amount of human life, human health, human intellect, human morals, by producing and throwing away a regular percentage of human soot-of that thinking and acting dirt which lies about, and, alas ! breeds and perpetuates itself in foul alleys and low public-houses, and all and any of the dark places of the earth.
But as in the case of the manufacturers, the Nemesis comes swift and sure. As the foul vapours of the mine and manufactory destroy vegetation and injure health, so does the Nemesis fall on the world of man-so does that human soot, those human poison gases, infect the whole society which has allowed them to fester under its feet. Sad; but not hopeless. Dark; but not without a gleam of light on the horizon.
1.5 Kingsley was also prophetic in his vision of a more enlightened time when society would demand that the countryside and lives wasted by industrial development should be cleaned-up.
"I can yet conceive a time when, by improved chemical science, every foul vapour which now escapes from the chimney of a manufactory, polluting the air, destroying the vegetation, shall be seized, utilized, converted into some profitable substance, till the Black Country shall be black no longer, and the streams once more run crystal clear, the trees be once more luxuriant, and the desert which man has created in his haste and greed, shall, in literal fact, once more blossom as the rose.
And just so can I conceive a time when, by a higher civilization, founded on political economy, more truly scientific, because more truly according to the will of God, our human refuse shall be utilized like our material refuse, when man as man, even down to the weakest and most ignorant, shall be found to be (as he really is) so valuable that it will be worth while to preserve his health, to the level of his capabilities, to save him alive, body, intellect, and character, at any cost; because men will see that a man is, after all, the most precious and useful thing in the earth, and that no cost spent on the development of human beings can possibly be thrown away".
1.6 When these reformers were active in Victorian Britain, environmental prophets of doom were also at work in North America. The first European settlers found a continent that was a vast reservoir of virtually untapped resources, sparsely populated by tribal peoples living in a natural balance of climate and wildlife. Thousands of years of hunting, fishing, and clearing for agriculture by stone axe and fire, had had no serious effect on plant and animal life, soil, or the orderly natural cycle of water—at least north of the Valley of Mexico. The native population recognized its intimate dependence upon the natural world, expressing it intuitively in the social customs of totem, taboo, and ceremony.
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1.7 The European settlers brought new ways and new beliefs. They had steel, gunpowder, ships, cattle and horses. Their religion still celebrated the ancient pagan festivals in spring, fall and midwinter, but without thought of the nature-worship that had given them birth. In Western thought, the natural world and its resources had become commodities to be used, used up, or destroyed, as a family or government desired. There had been a birth of sound agricultural practice in the Netherlands during the 17th century which had brought about fresh respect for the land. However, this movement, which started the agricultural revolution, spread slowly on the continent of Europe, and had not reached England and Spain when those two powerful nations began to colonize the New World.
1.8 It was chiefly in the mid-Atlantic part of North America that the soil and its resources were first treated with the respect they merited. Here many Swedes, Dutch and Germans settled. The Quakers, too, had a concern for the future, expressed in the idea of stewardship rather than ruthless exploitation. Philadelphia, which was their first urban settlement quickly became a centre for the study of nature. By contrast, the people who settled in New England were inclined towards profits through commerce and industrial production, and those of the South towards mass production of crops through the plantation system. The result was a tragic waste of natural resources, not only north and south, but to the west as migration continued.
1.9 North American explorers pushed out from the Atlantic States to gather knowledge of the unknown. John Wesley Powell led the first organised survey party to examine the arid and semi-arid lands of the West with an eye to their wisest future use. His report, published in 1879, is a classic of ecological reconnaissance. Vegetation, topography and climate all revealed to him that water was the limiting factor, and that traditional patterns of settlement and use, established in the more humid East, would not do here. Homesteads had to be much larger, irregular rather than rectangular in shape, and organized around the water supply. Sad, but typical to tell, his recommendations were pigeon-holed, and ignored by government. Lands were opened up to settlement on the usual Eastern plan, with a long sequel of failure and distress. It took the disastrous dust storms of the 1930's to vindicate his conclusions.
1.10 Powell saw people as a part of the living landscape. This led him to establish the Bureau of Ethnology, sponsoring studies of the various Indian tribes. He was, and remained a professional scientist.
1.11 George Perkins Marsh, another remarkable American of this period, travelled widely in the foreign service, and became a learned and acute student of the landscape and its inhabitants, human, plant and animal. His great book 'Man and Nature', later renamed 'The Earth as Modified by Human Action', appeared first in 1863. Its purpose can best be told in his own words:
'The object of the present volume is: to indicate the character and, approximately, the extent of the changes produced by human action in the physical conditions of the globe we inhabit; to point out the dangers of imprudence and the necessity of caution in all operations which, on a large scale, interfere with the spontaneous arrangements of
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the organic or the inorganic world; to suggest the possibility and the importance of the restoration of disturbed harmonies and the material improvement of wasted and exhausted regions; and, incidentally, to illustrate the doctrine that man is, in both kind and degree, a power of a higher order than any of the other forms of animated life, which, like him, are nourished at the table of bounteous nature.'
1.12 Humanity, he showed, had become a geological and biological force. As the dominant species on earth we are ruthlessly changing the environment to our own ends, but seldom to our lasting benefit. Using a mass of detailed evidence, he demonstrated that forest clearance, heavy grazing and careless agriculture had destroyed valuable resources, produced soil erosion and disturbed the orderly regime of water supply. He described the wholesale, wanton destruction of wildlife, including that of the egret, which was sought for its plumes. His experience in the Near East, where great empires had flourished and vanished, confirmed his view that people had too often been the authors of their own misfortunes.
1.13 Yet, unlike many ardent conservationists of later years, he saw clearly the social need and promise of great engineering works, only asking that they be planned with an intelligent understanding of the forces of nature. This was all published in 1863. It must have been widely read, for it went through revision and subsequent editions, but it had hardly any effect on public education, high or low, or on public policy. It was not until the Americans experienced diminishing timber and game, dramatic soil erosion, water scarcity and other troubles of environmental degradation, about 50 years later, that this remarkable book began to be appreciated. Perhaps if its knowledge and emerging principles could have been tucked into some neat academic slot, it might have had an earlier effect through the education system. The problem here was that solutions to environmental problems need expertise from many of the older subject areas.
2 The World Conservation Strategy
2.1 The long-standing assertion that we would find solutions to all our problems has now been supplanted by a new humility, born of the realization that even our most astonishing achievements cannot offset this disastrous devastation of the earth, its plants and its animals. This important change of thinking was signalled by the production of the World Conservation Strategy, published in 1980, by IUCN, UNEP and WWF as a package for decision makers. It was a significant step towards changing the views of governments that our planet's resources were unlimited, and signposted the road that eventually led to the Rio Environmental Summit in 1992.
2.2 What the Strategy says, quite clearly, is that only by working with nature can our industrial culture survive; conservation is in the mainstream of human progress. We must recognize that we are a part of nature and must resolve that all our actions should take this into account. Only on that basis can the fragile life- support systems of our planet be safeguarded and our cultural development be sustained.
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2.3 The World Conservation Strategy shows that development of the satisfaction of human needs, and the improvement of the quality of human life, depend upon conservation, and that conservation depends equally upon development. The Strategy aims to help advance the achievement of sustainable development through the conservation of living resources.
2.4 The World Conservation Strategy was prepared by IUCN and commissioned by UNEP, which together with WWF, provided the financial support for its preparation and helped to develop its basic themes. IUCN's membership of more than 450 government agencies and conservation organizations in over 100 countries were asked their views on conservation priorities. Two early drafts of the Strategy were sent for comment to IUCN members, and to the 700 scientists and other experts. This group were members of IUCN's Commissions on ecology, threatened species, protected areas, environmental planning, environmental policy, law and administration, and environmental education.
2.5 The final draft of the Strategy was submitted to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as well as to UNEP and WWF, and all four organizations reviewed it and made contributions to it.
3 Problems Of Consumerism
3.1 The theme of the Strategy is that planet Earth is the only place we know in the universe that can support human life. Yet human activities are progressively making the planet less fit to live on. A quarter of the world's people are consuming two-thirds of the world's resources, and about half of the world population is struggling to stay alive. Both groups are destroying the very means by which all people can survive and prosper. Everywhere, fertile soil is either built on or washed into the sea. Renewable resources are exploited beyond recovery, and pollutants are thrust into delicately balanced climatic systems. The planet's capacity to support people is being irreverslbly reduced at the very time when rising human numbers and consumption are making increasingly heavy demands on its natural resources.
3.2 The biosphere is like a self-regenerating cake, and conservation is the management of our affairs so that we can have our cake and eat it too. This means that certain bits of the cake must not be consumed, and consumption of the rest of the rest must be kept within certain limits. Our global resource-cake will then renew itself and provide for continuing consumption. For people to gain a decent livelihood from the earth without undermining its capacity to go on supporting them, they must conserve the biosphere. This means doing three things:
1. Maintain essential ecological processes and life-support systems which support all life. Essential ecological processes range from global phenomena such as the cycling of oxygen and carbon, to local ones, such as the pollination of flowers by insects, or the dispersal of seeds by birds. In between these are many processes essential for human survival and
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well-being, notably soil formation and protection, the recycling of nutrients, and the cleansing of air and waters.
3.3 All these processes are supported or strongly influenced by interdependent systems of plants, animals and micro-organisms, together with non-living components of their environment such as forests and estuaries. The main ecosystems involved are the planet's life-support systems. These can be altered, sometimes greatly, provided the essential processes they support are not irreversibly impaired. The maintenance of these processes is vital for all societies, regardless of their stage of development. Many archaeological ruins of great civilizations and small peasant villages, testify to the consequences of not doing so .
2. Genetic diversity must be preserved to maintain the range of variation present in the world's organisms: species, subspecies, varieties, strains and forms of plants animals and micro-organisms. Some of this variation may not be essential to our future needs, but we know that a great deal is vital to sustain and improve agricultual production. Present needs include the present food and fibre production through breeding programmes for crops, livestock, trees, forage plants and so on. We also need to keep open future options for changing our production system. Natural diversity is also required to provide a buffer against harmful environmental change, and to supply raw material for medical and scientific innovation, for pharmaceuticals, and for the many industries that use living resources.
3.4 The preservation of genetic diversity is a vital form of insurance and investment. It requires the prevention of the extinction of species and the preservation of as much of the variation within species as possible. Many species are highly variable, occurring in many different forms. The continuing availability of these different forms is of great importance to human welfare. This can be illustrated by two examples. The first concerns reserpine, a very effective drug in the treatment of hypertension. Reserpine comes from several species of serpentwood or Rauvolfia, plants growing in the tropical forests of Asia, Africa and the Americas, of which the most important today is African serpentwood. Most of the plants are collected from the wild, and it has been found that plants growing in one place may be much more effective than those growing elsewhere. For example, there is ten times more reserpine in serpentwood in Zaire than there is in neighbouring Uganda.
3.5 The second example shows that a valuable variety may at first be overlooked because it lacks obviously desirable characters. A variety of wheat collected in Turkey was ignored for15 years because it seemed so unpromising: it was thin-stemmed and collapsed in bad weather; it seldom survived the rigours of winter but it could not be persuaded to grow quickly enough for it to be planted late. Moreover, if it did survive to be harvested, its flour baked poorly. Suddenly stripe rust (a wheat disease) became serious in the USA and anxious farmers sought help. It was discovered that the apparently useless Turkish variety happened to be resistant to four kinds of stripe rust as well as to two other problem diseases. It is now used in all wheat breeding programmes in the north-
Contents p 246 Edition June 1, 2008 western USA; and improved varieties based on it are saving millions of dollars every year in reduced losses to disease.
3. We must utilise species and ecosystems sustainably. That is to say we should utilize species and ecosystems in amounts and in ways that allow them to go on renewing themselves for all practical purposes indefinitely. The main species groups and ecosystems concerned are fisheries, and other wildlife that enters trade from the cropping of forests and seminatural grazing lands. The importance of ensuring that utilization of an ecosystem or species is sustainable, varies with a society's dependence on the resource in question. For a subsistence society, sustainable utilization of most, if not all, its living resources is essential. Sustainable use is equally important for a society (whether developing or developed) with a 'one crop' or 'few crop' economy, depending largely on a particular living resource (for example, the fishing communities of eastern Canada are now extinct because of over-fishing). The greater the diversity and flexibility of the economy, the less the need to utilize certain resources sustainably, but by the same token the less the excuse not to.
4 Importance Of Conservation
4.1 Conservation is a matter both of respect for life and of making life easier by discovering and living by ecological rules. But it is also something much more basic and urgent. Already for at least half of the world's population conservation is now a matter of life and death. People such as the peasant farmers, fishers, herders and hunters who make up about three-quarters of the populations of developing countries, and people everywhere who suffer from diseases whose treatment depends on drugs of natural origin, are immediately vulnerable to resource impoverishment.
4.2 The dependence of rural communities on nature and its resources is also direct and immediate. For the 500 million people who are malnourished, or the 1,500 million people whose only fuel is wood, dung or crop wastes, or the 800 million people with incomes of $50 or less a year, conservation is the only thing between them and at best abject misery, at worst death. So it is for the millions of people suffering from diseases that are relieved by drugs from plants, animals and microorganisms.
4.3 Ultimately, conservation is a life and death matter for everybody. The air we breathe and the soil in which we grow food are the products of living organisms. Without plants, animals and microbes, people would not exist.
4.4 The way to sustainable development is to invent and apply patterns of development that also conserve the living resoures essential for human survival and well-being. Conservation is often thought of and treated as a specialized, and somewhat limited activity, but in fact it is a process that cuts across and must be incorporated into all human activities. For this to be achieved, each of us will have radically to re-orientate our view of the world and of our place and role in it. Meanwhile. it is urgent that conservation and development be fully integrated to
Contents p 247 Edition June 1, 2008 ensure that, in our quest for a higher quality of life, we protect those parts of the biosphere that need protecting and modify the rest only in ways that it can sustain. For this we need a world conservation strategy.
5 Why A World Strategy Is Needed.
5.1 A world strategy for the conservation of the earth's living resources is needed for three reasons.
1 The need for conservation is so pressing that it should be in the forefront of human endeavour. Yet for most people and their governments conservation is a peripheral activity perpetrated by voluntary bodies, protecting birds and flowers . One consequence of this view is that development, which should be the main means of solving human problems, is so little affected by conservation that too often planning adds to human problems by destroying or degrading living resources essential for human welfare. A world strategy is needed to focus the attention of the world on conservation in the context of economic planning.
2 National and international organizations concerned with conservation, whether governmental or nongovernmental, are ill-organized and fragmented, split up among different interests such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries and wildlife. As a result there is duplication of effort, gaps in coverage, competition for money and influence, and conflict. When what is urgently needed is a concerted, cooperative effort. A world strategy is needed to promote that effort and define the areas where cooperation is most needed.
3 The action required to cure the most serious current conservation problems, and to prevent still worse ones takes time: time for planning, education, training, better organization and research. When such action is undertaken, it takes time for the biosphere to respond. Reforestation, the restoration of degraded land, the recovery of depleted fisheries and so on are not instantaneous processes but require decades to come to equilibrium.
5.2 With every year that passes more essential resources are destroyed, while human demand for those resources increases. The world population increases by almost half every 20 years. Yet at present rates of destruction people unborn will have to make do with a third less farmland, and less than half the present area of productive tropical forest. Because remedial action takes so much time, it must be very well focused, concentrating only on the highest priorities, and action must be taken at once. A world strategy is needed to determine those priorities, indicate the main obstacles to achieving them, and propose ways of overcoming the obstacles. This is precisely what the world conservation strategy does.
6 Who Needs The Strategy?
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6.1 Governments are generally aware of the need to conserve living resources, few take adequate account of conservation objectives when making policy or planning development. Few allocate or regulate their living resources to ensure that the best sustainable uses are made of them. Many lack the financial or technical resources, the political will, or adequate legislative, institutional or public support for conservation (or any combination of these) to carry out fully the conservation measures required. The result is that the number of urgent conservation problems proliferates while species decline and ecosystems are degraded. Few governments have the financial and technical resources to address all the problems of living resource conservation at once. They therefore need to know what needs to be done first. Accordingly, the Strategy both recommends ways of overcoming the main obstacles to conservation and provides guidance on what action is most important.
6.2 Conservationists and others directly concerned with living resources need the Strategy in several ways:
— to remind users of living resources of the need for conservation;
— to remind those concerned with a particular living resource that living resources are interdependent; they need to ensure that conservation of the resource concerned does not conflict with that of others, and of the advantages of cooperation with other conservationists;
— to indicate the main obstacles to living resource conservation and show how they can be overcome;
— to indicate those areas where conservation action is most urgently needed and where it is likely to yield the biggest and most lasting results;
— to propose ways for conservation to participate more effectively in the development process.
6.3 Specialists in agriculture and forestry, for example, need to be concerned as much with maintaining their resource base as with increasing production. They also need to work closely together, since their concerns are often intimately related. Farmers need to ensure that the life-support systems of which their farms are part and the genetic diversity on which their crops depend are secured, and they have a role to play in achieving that security.
6.4 Wildlife conservationists specializing in particular groups of creatures — be they whales or butterflies, orchids or owls— have just as great an interest in seeing to it that the conservation climate is improved and that all countries' capacities for conservation are strengthened, as in promoting their more specific concerns. All these people and their organizations will continue to concentrate on their central objectives. The purpose of the Strategy is not to divert them from those objectives but to stimulate them into taking a broader, more integrated and cooperative approach to their achievement.
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6.5 Similarly, for development practitioners the Strategy proposes ways of improving the prospects of sustainable development—development that is likely to achieve lasting satisfaction of human needs and improvement of the quality of human life — by integrating conservation into the development process. It also attempts to identify those areas where the interests of conservation and of development are most likely to coincide, and therefore where a closer partnership between the two processes would be particularly advantageous.
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7 Guide To The Strategy
7.1 The World Conservation Strategy is intended to stimulate a more focused approach to living resource conservation and to provide policy guidance on how this can be carried out. It concentrates on the main problems directly affecting the achievement of conservation's objectives: the maintenance of essential ecological processes and life-support systems, the preservation of genetic diversity, and the sustainable utilization of species and ecosystems. In particular, the Strategy identifies the action needed both to improve conservation efficiency and to integrate conservation and development. Irrespective of its purpose, the function of every strategy is to
— determine the priority requirements for achieving its objectives; —identify the obstacles to meeting those requirements; — propose the most cost- effective ways of overcoming those obstacles.
7.2 With resources limited and time running out, it is essential to be sure that the available resources and effort are applied to the highest priority requirements first, and only afterwards to lesser priorities. We are in exactly this situation with conservation, yet conservation organizations have seldom attempted to agree priorities. This is understandable, since there are so many urgent problems to be dealt with, people have different perceptions of priorities, and there have been few universally accepted criteria for what is important. However, it is precisely because there are so many requirements, most of them urgent, and many of them each demanding all or more of the resources at conservation's disposal, that priorities must be determined and followed. The first need, therefore, is for criteria for deciding priorities. There are three: significance, urgency and irreversibility.
7.3 Significance is determined by asking such questions as
— how important is this requirement in relation to others for achieving the objective concerned? — what proportion of the global, regional, and national population depends on this requirement being met? — how important is the requirement to the people most affected? — how much of a particular resource will be conserved if the requirement is met?
7.4 Urgency is a function of the rate at which a significant problem will become worse if the requirement is not met, and of the time required to meet it.
7.5 Irreversibility is the key criterion: highest priority is given to significant, urgent requirements to prevent further irreversible damage to living resources, notably the extinction of species, the extinction of varieties of useful plants and animals, the loss of essential life-support systems, and severe soil degradation.
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8 Priority Problem Areas
8.1 Using these criteria the problem areas of greatest and most immediate concern are outlined below.
- Agricultural systems. In view of the scarcity of high-quality cropland, the rapidity with which it is being destroyed, and the rising demand for food and other agricultural products, it is vital that the most suitable land for crops be reserved for agriculture and that all cropland be managed to high standards. Loss of cropland and of soils and the disappearance of genetic resources essential for crop breeding have profound implications for everybody, since they presage the collapse of the biological basis of our food supply. The world's drylands, which cover about one-third of the earth's land surface, are particularly seriously affected. There the spread of desert conditions already jeopardizes the survival of almost 80 million people, and as many as 630 million could be threatened by it in coming years.
- Forests. Forest destruction means not only the loss of valuable products but also the decline of essential services, notably protection of watersheds (the upper parts of river basins). At least half the global population is affected by the way in which watershed areas are managed, for although only 10 per cent of the world.'s people live in mountain regions, another 40 per cent live in the adjacent lowland basins. The most endangered forests are tropical rain forests. The world has only decades to save tropical rain forests from falling below a sustainable area. If this target is not met then, not only will a huge store of vital genetic resources have been lost for ever but regional climates, and perhaps the global climate, could be changed for the worse. Without the rainforest global warming may never be arrested.
- The sea. The sea is so huge that it seems invulnerable to human impacts. Its most productive areas are close to shore however, and are very heavily damaged by pollution, habitat destruction and overfishing. Coastal wetlands and shallows, together with the marine fisheries that depend on them, constitute the world's biggest wildlife resource. The mangroves and estuaries that support the fisheries are throughout the world either being polluted or destroyed altogether. Other marine areas are also strikingly important, particularly coral reefs, but are not yet under such universal pressure as coastal wetlands. Action to conserve them should be taken without delay to take advantage of the fact that they are not yet as badly off as temperate estuaries or tropical forests.
- Endangered species. Thousands or possibly a million species and many more varieties are threatened with extinction, so it is difficult to know where to begin their conservation. The Strategy recommends concentrating on three types of threatened organism: those that are so different genetically from other species that their extinction would be an exceptionally great loss; those that are, or are closely related to,
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economically or culturally Important species; and those that are so concentrated in certain areas that groups of them can be saved in one operation.
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9 Priority Actions
9.1 Three kinds of action are needed to ensure that conservation objectives will be achieved. The first is specific to the problem areas and concerns the priority requirements for meeting the conservation needs of each. The second kind of action is much more fundamental since it aims to overcome the main obstacles to conservation, irrespective of the problem area. The third strikes at underlying factors, such as population growth, over-consumption by the affluent, and poverty.
9.2 Most priority requirements for achieving conservation are obvious: reserve good cropland for crops; manage cropland to high standards; protect watershed forests; protect the support systems of fisheries; control pollution; prevent the extinction of species; preserve as many varieties as possible of crop plants, forage plants, timber trees, livestock, animals for agriculture, microbes and other domesticated organisms and their wild relatives; establish comprehensive systems of , protected areas; regulate international trade in wild plants and animals; reduce excessive catches to sustainable levels, and so on.
9.3 Obvious though they may be, these and similar requirements are often overlooked. One reason is that competition among different uses of land and water has become so acute that governments have become reluctant to take the actions conservationists recommend. Conservationists have given them little encouragement because often they have pushed for extreme courses of action, not recognizing the difficult trade-offs involved. Take, for example, the requirement to reserve good cropland for crops. On the face of it, it is straightforward. The demand for food continues to grow but high quality cropland is scarce. Nine - tenths of the earth's land surface has serious problems in agriculture. Since it is not possible to relocate prime cropland but it is possible to be flexible about the siting of buildings and roads, agriculture should have precedence. However, the need for farmland competes not just with the need for building land but also with other conservation needs. Many wetlands are often essential nurseries and nutrient suppliers of fisheries, but when drained they make good cropland. Similarly, forest areas rich in species are ideal candidates as nature reserves might need to be cleared for crops or pasture. Governments need guidance on how to decide such difficult conflicts.
9.4 If the land is of prime quality, with no serious limitation for agriculture, then agriculture should still have priority, even over other conservation needs. If the land poses difficulties for farming, however, agriculture, while continuing to have priority over non-living resource uses (such as building), should be subordinated to the needs of genetic resource conservation and (in the case of wetlands) to those of fisheries.
9.5 The main reason for the failure to meet the priority conservation requirements however, is the neglect of the second kind of action - action to overcome the main obstacles to conservation. Most nations are simply very poorly organized to conserve, lacking any system for building conservation into their decision-making process sufficiently early for conservation to be a positive influence on development rather than an irritant to it. Because these obstacles are the main
Contents p 254 Edition June 1, 2008 block to progress, the World Conservation Strategy concentrates its attention on them.
10 Main Obstacles
10.1 The obstacles to conservation are many and complex but the main ones are outlined below.
- The belief that the conservation of living resources is a specialized activity rather than a process that cuts across many disciplines and must be considered by all sectors of activity.
- The consequent failure to integrate conservation with development.
- A development process that is generally inflexible and needlessly destructive. because of inadequate environmental planning and a lack of rational allocation of land and water uses.
- The lack of a capacity, because of inadequate legislation, to conserve; poor organization (notably government agencies with insufficient mandates and a lack of coordination); lack of trained personnel; and a lack of basic information on priorities, on the productive and regenerative capacities of the living resources concerned, and on the trade-offs between one management option and another.
- The lack of support for conservation, because of a lack of awareness (other than at the most superficial level) of the need for conservation and of the lack of responsibility to conserve amongst those who use or have an impact on, living resources, including in many cases, governments.
- Failure to deliver conservation-based development where it is most needed, notably the rural areas of developing countries.
10.2 The need to tackle these obstacles must be kept constantly in mind. A species may be rescued, an area protected, or an environmental impact reduced, but such successes will be temporary or will be overshadowed by much greater failures unless every country's capacity to conserve is greatly improved and permanently strengthened.
10.3 Accordingly, the Strategy's recommendations for national action are devoted entirely to this set of issues. They begin with the proposal that every country (indeed every governing unit, such as the federal states in the USA and Canada's provinces, with responsibilities for planning - and managing the use of living resources) should prepare a conservation strategy. Only in this way can wasteful ad hoc action and excessive concern for symptoms rather than causes be avoided. This recommendation was acted on by the Rio Environment Summit and is now being implemented in Government and Local Action Plans for Sustainable Development and Biodiversity.
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10.4 The Strategy establishes priorities for international action. Although most action must be taken by and within countries, there are several aspects of. conservation that can only be tackled internationally. Many living resources are shared by two or more nations. Many occur (temporarily or permanently) in areas beyond national jurisdiction, notably in the open ocean farther than 200 nautical miles from shore. Living resources in one state may be affected by activities carried out in another: for example, fish may be killed by acid rain originating with sulphur dioxide pollution in another country. These resources can be conserved only by international action. International action is also necessary to promote the conservation of resources (such as the genetic resources of crops) vital for the survival of all humanity, as well as to stimulate and support national action.
10.5 The Strategy therefore recommends a series of cooperative programmes concentrating on tropical forests and drylands, the establishment of protected areas for the preservation of genetic resources, the global commons (the open ocean, the atmospheric climate and Antarctica), and regional strategies for international river basins and seas. These programmes will provide an essential focus for international action in those areas in which it is indispensable, as well as for international support for national action to carry out other priorities of the Strategy.
11 Other Strategies
11.1 Much habitat destruction and over-exploitation of living resources by individuals, communities and nations in the developing world is a response to relative poverty, caused or exacerbated by a combination of rising human numbers and inequities within and among nations. Peasant communities, for example, may be forced to cultivate steep, unstable slopes both because their growing numbers exceed the capacity of the land and because the fertile, easily managed valley bottoms have been taken over by large landowners. Similarly, many developing countries have so few natural resources and operate under such unfavourable conditions of international trade that they often have very little choice but to exploit forests, fisheries and other living resources unsustainably. In many parts of the world population pressures are making demands on resources beyond the capacity of those resources to sustain themselves. Every country should have a conscious and deliberate population policy to avoid as far as possible the development of such situations, and eventually to achieve a balance between numbers and environment. At the same time it is essential that the affluent constrain their demands on resources, and ideally reduce them, shifting some of their wealth to assisting the deprived. To a significant extent the survival and future of the poor depends on conservation and sharing by the rich.
11.2 These are some of the underlying factors which inhibit both conservation and development. It is beyond the scope of a conservation strategy to deal with all of them. Conservation of living resources is just one of several conditions necessary to assure human survival and well-being, and a world conservation strategy is but one of a number of necessary strategies. Strategies for a new international economic order, for human rights, for overcoming poverty, and for
Contents p 256 Edition June 1, 2008 population are also essential. An International Development Strategy prepared by the United Nations deals with some of these issues. Strategies for the others are still urgently needed, for ultimately each is necessary for the others' success. Meanwhile, for the first time in history, a world strategy for living resource conservation now exists. It is long overdue.
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12 Securing The Food Supply
12.1 Prime farmland is a scarce resource that is getting scarcer. Only one-tenth of the world's land area is without problems for farming. The rest is either too dry or too wet, or has not enough soil, or the soil is either nutrient deficient, toxic, or permanently frozen. The limited amount of good land is distributed unevenly. Regions with the biggest proportion are Europe (36 per cent), central America (25 per cent), and North America (22 per cent). Those with the smallest are north and central Asia ( 10 per cent), south-east Asia (14 per cent), South America (15 per cent), and Australia (15 per cent).
12.2 Much of this land, rare though it is, is being permanently taken out of agricultural use by being built upon. Between 1960 and 1971 Japan lost more than 7 per cent of its agricultural land to buildings and roads and European countries lost from 1.5 per cent (Norway) to almost 4.5 per cent (Netherlands). Between 1961 and 1971 more than 8000 square kilometres (over 2 million acres) of Canada's prime farmland were lost through urbanization. For every increase of 1000 in Canada's urban population, 320 hectares (785 acres) of one of the world's main grains suppliers disappear. During the last decade, the USA submerged more than 12,000 square kilometres (about 3 million acres) of agricultural land under concrete and tarmac every year.
12.3 The impact of these losses will be felt by millions of people far away from the countries in which they are occurring. As Gus Speth, chairman of the US Council on Environmental Quality. says of the US losses: 'When you figure that we've got about 400 million acres (1.6 million square kilometres) under cultivation, and we're feeding about 300 million people, counting our exports, it means that every time we lose a couple million acres of cropland that's a million people that aren't going to be fed.' The impact will not just be confined to the food sector. In 1979 the USA earned $33,000 million from agricultural exports, enough to make up half the cost of the country's oil imports.
12.4 Not only is farmland disappearing at an alarming rate, but much that remains is being heavily degraded by bad farming practices. As much as one-third of the world's cropland will be destroyed in the next 20 years if current rates of land degradation continue.
12.5 Agricultural productivity depends not only on maintaining soil quality but also on adopting cropping patterns and retaining a variety of habitats to encourage beneficial insects and other animals. These are important for the pollination of certain crops and for helping to suppress pests, as part of integrated programmes of pest control. Pests can no longer be controlled by heavy doses of pesticides, partly because of the rising cost of petroleum- derived products but largely because excessive pesticide use promotes resistance (the number of pesticide- resistant insects and mites has doubled in 12 years), destroys natural enemies, turns formerly harmless species into pests and contaminates food and feed. Instead pesticides should be used to supplement a battery of methods integrated in appropriate combinations. These methods include the introduction of pest- resistant crop varieties, special planting combinations and patterns, mechanical
Contents p 258 Edition June 1, 2008 methods, the use of repellents and hormones, and the encouragement of natural enemies.
12.6 Permanent pastures (land used for five years or more for herbaceous forage crops, whether cultivated or wild) are the most extensive land-use type in the world, occupying 30 million square kilometres (12 million square miles), or 20 per cent of the earth's land surface. Permanent pastures and other grazing land are usually unsuitable for crops without intensive capital investment. Their productivity is generally low, ranging from 1 hectare (2.45 acres) supporting three to five animal units on fertile, well-managed pastures in central Europe to 50-60 hectares (120-150 acres) to support one animal unit in Saudi Arabia. Nonetheless, grazing lands and forage support most of the world's 3000 million head of domesticated grazing animals, and hence most of the world's production of meat and milk.
12.7 The genetic material contained in the domesticated varieties of crop plants, trees, livestock and aquatic animals, as well as in their wild relatives, is essential for the breeding programmes in which continued improvements in yields, nutritional quality, flavour, durability, pest and disease resistance, responsiveness to different soils and climates, and other qualities are achieved. These qualities are rarely, if ever, permanent. For example, the average lifetime of wheat and other cereal varieties in Europe and North America is only five to fifteen years. Pests and diseases evolve new strains and overcome resistance; climates alter; soils vary; consumer demands change. Farmers and other crop producers, therefore, cannot do without the reservoir of still-evolving possibilities available in the range of varieties of crop and domesticated animals, and their wild relatives.
12.8 Soil and vegetation are taking so heavy a beating from hooves and human implements that almost 38 million square kilometres ( 15 million square miles) — a quarter of the earth's land surface — is in danger of becoming desert. The creation of new desert areas is happening on a colossal scale. All over the world people are busy making life even more difficult than it already is. They are turning semi- desert into desert and desert into extreme desert, transforming the barely productive into the unproductively bare. The precious soil is either stripped from the land to fertilize the ocean or fill up reservoirs or it is sterilized by salt and alkali. Over much of the planet where two ears of corn or two blades of grass grew yesterday only one can grow today.
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13 Actions On Food Supply
13.1 Securing the food supply should be at the top of every government's agenda. Although many problems, such as soil loss and excessive use of pesticides, can be dealt with directly by farmers and other land users, the most important action required is to change government policy. Governments should do at least three things
- Give precedence to farming. Prime farmland is taken over by buildings and roads because towns tend to grow up in the middle of agricultural land and their expansion is poorly controlled, and because property values are much higher than agricultural values. Farmland near Washington DC, would sell for almost $40,000 per hectare ($15,000 per acre) to a suburban developer. But for a farmer to earn an equivalent return from that land, he would have to charge $12 for every bushel (35 litres) of corn, about four times the going rate. If conversion of land to non-agricultural users is left to the unregulated marketplace, the best farmland will continue to disappear quickly. Therefore, governments should first of all make a decision to give precedence to agriculture whenever there is competition between agriculture and other uses for high quality land. They can enforce that decision by prohibiting the sale of farmland, dropping government assistance for projects that would encourage conversion of farmland, and promoting the use of lower quality land as sites for urban development.
- Start a top-level soil conservation service. Land users allow the land to degrade because they are after a quick buck, they do not know better, or they have no choice. With the costs of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and equipment going up, with credit either short or expensive, and with market prices for produce uncertain, farmers are often tempted to wring more out of the land than it can sustain. They may neglect drainage, grow crops where grass alone is suitable, or convert to grass land that should remain wooded. Many farmers are simply unaware of the effects their actions this year will have on their capacity to grow food in future years. Or, if they are vaguely aware, they do not know what to do to make sure that any increase in productivity is sustainable. Millions of peasant farmers, especially in developing countries, are not in a position to conserve the soil, however knowledgeable they may be. - Step up programmes to preserve crop and livestock genetic resources. The three ways of preserving the genetic diversity of the world's vanishing species and varieties are outlined below.
(a) On site—in which the stock is preserved by protecting the ecosystem in which it occurs naturally.
(b) Off site, part of the organism—in which the seed, semen or other element from which the organism concerned can be reproduced is preserved.
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(c) Off site, whole animal—in which a stock of individuals of the organism concerned is kept outside their natural habitat in a plantation, botanical garden, zoo, aquarium or ranch.
All these ways are necessary and each has advantages over the others. Off site preservation is generally cheaper and easier, except in the case of most wild animals and those wild plants whose seeds cannot be stored for long periods without deteriorating or which cannot be grown in monocultures.
14 Stopping Desertification
14.1 In September 1977 the United Nations Conference on Desertification (UNCOD) agreed an impressive plan of action, largely directed at governments, to tackle desertification. The plan called for a wide range of activities to deal with the complex biological, social, economic and political factors involved, based on the development of proper land use, including conservation and enhancement of living resources and water resources. It envisaged the successful halting of desertification throughout the world by the end of this century through national programmes assisted by inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The formidable cost, estimated at $15,625 million per year, was seen as coming from increased levels of international aid and assistance, reinforced if possible by arrangements such as a special anti-desertification funds and an international taxation scheme.
14.2 Saving the Forests
Forests are the prime example of natural areas that contribute heavily to human welfare by acting as environmental buffers. Forests influence local and regional climates, generally by making them milder. They help to provide a continuous flow of clean water; some forests, notably tropical cloud forests, even increase the availability of water by intercepting moisture from clouds. Watershed forests are particularly important because they protect soil cover on site and protect areas downstream from floods and other harmful fluctuations in streamflow. Removal or degradation of watershed forests and pastures can cause, great human suffering. Without the sponge-like effect of their vegetation, which retains moisture and releases it slowly, the flow of water becomes erratic, leading to both floods and water shortages. The increased rate of water run-off causes additional damage by stripping the soil away, depriving agriculture of nutrients while clogging reservoirs, irrigation systems, canals and docks with silt, and smothering coral reefs.
14.3 Watershed forests are being widely devastated by clearance for agriculture, logging and cutting for fuel, overgrazing, and badly managed road-building. The results can be extremely expensive. It costs Argentina tens of millions of dollars a year to dredge silt from the estuary of the River Plate and keep Buenos Aires open to shipping. Yet 80 per cent of the lOO million tonnes of sediment that every year threaten to block the harbour comes from only 4 per cent of the drainage basin, the
Contents p 261 Edition June 1, 2008 small but heavily overgrazed catchment area of the Bermejo River 1800 kilometres (1100 miles) upstream.
14.4 Sedimentation as a result of unwise or careless use of watershed forests can drastically reduce the economic life of reservoirs, hydroelectric facilities and irrigation systems. The capacity of India's Nizamsagar Reservoir has been more than halved, from almost 900 million cubic meters (1170 cubic yards) to less than 340 million cubic metres (440 cubic yards). Now there is not enough water to irrigate the 110,000 hectares (270,000 acres) of sugar-cane and rice for which it was intended, and hence not enough sugarcane to supply local sugar factories. Deforestation in northern Luzon in the Philippines has silted up the reservoir of the Ambuklao Dam so fast that its useful life has been reduced from 60 to 32 years. Such problems are not confined to developing countries: it has been estimated, for example, that more than 1000 million cubic metres ( 1300 million cubic yards) of sediment are deposited every year in the major reservoirs of the USA. Although they have not been calculated (indeed, probably cannot be), the global costs of sediment removal, river dredging, reconstruction of irrigation systems and loss of investment in expensive structures like dams must be huge.
14.5 Deforestation in India and Nepal was probably the major cause of the recent spate of disastrous floods in India and Bangladesh. Flooding costs India alone hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Typical of such disasters was the Alakamanda episode during the 1970 monsoon, when the Himalayan river of that name burst its banks. It was the start of a disastrous flood, without precedent in the river's history. Whole villages were carried away and enormous loads of silt were dumped downstream, ruining irrigation systems in the plains of Uttar Pradesh. Banks were eroded and debris carried down the tributaries built up huge natural dams at the confluence with the main river. As the water pressure increased the dams collapsed, leading to flash floods. It was all the evidence local communities needed to demand an end to the extensive deforestation of the local watersheds.
14.6 Elsewhere in Asia, deforestation and poor land management have caused fluctuations in streamflows that have left high-yield varieties of rice with either too much or too little water, thereby reducing rather than raising yields. Deforestation and other unwise environmental manipulations (such as excessive channelization) probably also contributed to the severity of floods that in recent years have struck countries as diverse as the USA and the Philippines. Similarly, in Colombia, several major cities have to live with electricity rationing as a consequence of widespread deforestation.
14.7 Besides protecting human communities from many forms of environmental harm, forests provide a huge variety of goods and services: timber, sawnwood and panels for construction, walls, doors, shuttering and furniture; pulp- wood for pulp, paper, cartons and rayon; poles, posts, mining timbers and railway track sleepers; fuelwood, fodder, fruits, game meat, honey, pharmaceuticals, fibres, resins, gums, dyes, skins, waxes and oils; and products used for beauty care, amenity and recreation. Forests have unquestioned importance for industry and commerce. The value of the annual world production of forest products exceeds $100,00 million and international trade is worth over $50,000 million. Thirty
Contents p 262 Edition June 1, 2008 countries (eight of them developing countries) each earn more than $100 million a year from exports of forest products, and five of these each earn more than $1000 million a year. Unfortunately, much of this exploitation is not sustainable. Without conservation, the real income from forest products may well decline.
15 Action On Forests
15.1 Forests, particularly tropical forests, are succumbing to two sets of very different pressures. One is the result of poverty combined with population growth — the desperate struggle of peasant forest-dwellers to stay alive and earn a decent livelihood. The other is the result of excessive or carelessly applied commercial demand, largely by people in developed countries.
15.2 To save the forests from the first set of pressures, we must greatly accelerate rural development. Development must be based on conservation however, if it is not to destroy forests just as thoroughly as does the current lack of development. In the case of forest destruction by excessive firewood collection it would include such actions as the establishment of plantations for firewood large enough to meet higher levels of demand than today's; the provision of alternative sources of firewood to take pressure off the plantations and remaining vegetations; the restoration of the vegetation; and the provision of stoves that use firewood more efficiently and alternative sources of energy such as biogas (methane) and solar energy.
15.3 Dealing with the second set of pressures requires insisting that all forest exploitation is managed to high standards. The siting and management of timber operations should be such that essential processes (especially watershed protection) are maintained. Unnecessary damage to trees that are not used should be avoided. Felling programmes should be matched by planting programmes, as far as possible using the species exploited, so that what is taken out is replaced. Most timber companies are capable of taking all the necessary measures and should undertake to do so, but governments should make sure that they are capable of inspecting and controlling the conduct of commercial logging operations before they start.
16 Marine Life
16.1 As the ocean covers seven-tenths of our planet, it might more aptly have been called 'sea' rather than 'earth'. Yet the sea is apparently so foreign to us that such perverse behaviour as that described above is symptomatic of the way we treat it. Marine management is still extremely unsophisticated, lagging far behind our (admittedly inadequate) knowledge of the seas. Often human activities that have an impact on the sea are scarcely regulated at all. But when they are, management is fragmented and quite inadequate as a means of controlling the multiple ways we use marine resources. One management authority may regulate pollution; another fishing; and yet another the catching of marine mammals like whales or seals.
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16.2 On average, fish and other seafood account for 6 per cent of the total protein and 17 per cent of the animal protein in the human diet. If this seems small, it should be remembered that on a world basis most (65 per cent) protein comes from plants, chiefly cereals, beans and peas, nuts and oilseeds. Meat accounts for 16 per cent and milk products for 9.5 per cent of the average total protein intake.
16.3 International statistics are a little misleading. Many communities in countries not otherwise notable for fish eating depend heavily on seafood, whether for subsistence, income or both. Besides, the cultural and aesthetic importance of seafood is at least as great and possibly much greater than its nutritional importance. What dish is more symbolic of expensive luxury than caviar?
16.4 There are no world figures for domestic trade in fish and fishery products, but it is clear from export figures alone that trade in seafood is both substantial and rapidly growing. In 1978 seafood exports reached almost $11,000 million, an increase of 15 per cent over the previous year. In the 1980s nineteen countries, six of them developing (Mexico, Peru, India, Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea), each earned $100 million or more a year from fish exports. Norway, Canada and Denmark each earned more than $600 million a year from their seafood exports. Seventeen countries, all but three (Iceland, Norway, Denmark) developing, each derived 3 per cent or more of their export earnings from seafood. Peru, Senegal and the Solomon Islands depend on fish for 10 per cent or more of their export trade and Iceland's dependence on seafood exports is as high as 78 per cent. Since then the global fishery earnings have decreased because of over-cropping.
16.5 Unfortunately use of fisheries is often not sustainable and their contribution to national diets and incomes is likely to diminish. The result of past and present overfishing is that the annual world catch is around 25 million tonnes (or about a quarter) lower than it might otherwise have been. At least 25 of the world's most valuable fisheries are seriously depleted. Many more are now so fully exploited that they can be expected to become depleted within a decade or so, because of the effects of exploitation, either alone or in combination with those of pollution and habitat destruction.
16.6 Yet an even bigger waste is the accidental capture and killing of non-target animals. For every tonne of shrimp landed at least three tonnes of fish are thrown away dead. This is probably an underestimation. In the Gulf of Mexico the ratio of fish discards to caught shrimp ranges from 3:1 to 20:1, largely depending on whether the shrimp are trawled inshore or offshore. In 1976 the world catch of shrimp was 1.3 million tonnes. Even assuming that some of the fish caught with them were landed and marketed, it is still likely that at least 6.5 million tonnes of fish were destroyed by shrimp trawling alone. Countries such as India are probably losing 980,000 tonnes ot fish a year, Thailand 548,000 tonnes a year, Mexico and Indonesia each 360,000 tonnes a year, and so on. A lot of protein is being needlessly wasted.
16.7 It can no longer be assumed that depleted fish stocks will recover to their full potential. There are three factors obstructing their recovery. First, the spawning fishes and juveniles may continue to be caught by industrial fisheries (which take fish for conversion to animal feed). Second, ecosystem dynamics can
Contents p 264 Edition June 1, 2008 change and another species may take over because the depleted species can no longer compete effectively with it. Third, habitats essential for spawning or as nurseries are being degraded or destroyed outright.
16.8 Wetland destruction is also a major problem along the middle Atlantic coast, but it is overshadowed by direct kills of fish and other marine animals. Heavy recurrent pollution of the New York Bight is responsible for an unusually high incidence of fin rot disease in winter flounder and of 'shell disease' in American lobster and rock crab. Massive kills are caused by recurrences of anoxic conditions, ie severely reduced dissolved oxygen levels due to excessive inputs of nutrients, largely via municipal wastewater discharges. Billions of organisms, including lobsters, surf clams, crabs, hake, winter flounder and sea bass, have been killed by these conditions. Other fish kills are due to municipal or industrial discharges. In Virginia in 1973, 7.5 million fish were killed in one incident due to over-chlorination of waste effluent. The total cost of fish, crustacean and mollusc kills in the region is estimated to be tens of millions of dollars a year.
16.9 Such problems are not restricted to coastal wetlands. In many parts of the world coral reefs are also under attack from destructive fishing methods (including the use of dynamite), excessive collection of corals, shells and other coral organisms, extraction of coral sand from lagoons, development of lagoons, oil pollution, siltation from erosion inland, pesticides, heat pollution, brine pollution (from desalination plants) and sewage pollution. Entire reefs in the Philippines have been removed for building foundations and roads. Reefs near towns have been stripped of corals for ornament, and those near sugar refineries have been severely degraded. In Sri Lanka repeated removal of coral reef for the production of lime is so extensive that a local fishery has collapsed; mangroves, small lagoons and coconut groves have disappeared; and local wells have been contaminated with salt.
17 Action On Oceans
17.1 The open ocean —the sea beyond national jurisdiction — is part of the global commons: that part of the planet that belongs to nobody, and hence to everybody. Because nobody owns it, however, it is exploited even more carelessly than are coastal waters. Only distance from shore saves the open ocean from the worst kinds of pollution and habitat destruction. But the advent of deep-sea mining will almost certainly change that.
17.2 A major difficulty in the conservation of marine environments is that they are not self-contained entities but parts of a continuum extending from the land to the open ocean, and from one part of the ocean to another. The oceans have their boundaries, but they are subtle and do not always correspond with popular conceptions of them. Currents, upwellings, salinity and temperature differences can act as barriers. The coast, by contrast, often unites rather than separates land and sea.
17.3 Governments and their resource management institutions generally have failed to recognize this phenomenon. Indeed most of the problems facing the life
Contents p 265 Edition June 1, 2008 of the seas stem from the failure of human politics and administrations to adjust to the ecological realities of the seas. Thus the decline of fish such as herring is due less to ignorance of the animals' biology or of the environments of which they are part than to the weaknesses of the human institutions governing their exploitation. In many cases the scientific advice on the management of such fisheries has been sound, if a little mealy mouthed. But fishermen vote and governments have often been reluctant, until too late, to take steps that would put some fishermen out of work but would enable the remainder to earn their living from the sea virtually indefinitely.
18 Maintaining Biodiversity
18.1 Contemporary people in their species-rich world are like the tenants of a shop full of antique glass who enter it at dead of night during a power cut, slightly drunk. They know roughly where the display tables are, but not well enough to prevent themselves from blundering into them and certainly not to identify the crashes of broken crystal, whether a vase or a bowl, a goblet or a tankard, whether Venetian, Bohemian, or ancient Roman. They scarcely perceive that each crash signifies the loss of something priceless, irreplaceable and uninsured; and they are apparently incapable of taking the elementary precaution of using a flashlight and moving with care.
18.2 We do not know how many species we are plunging to extinction. Apart from the higher plants of a few countries, only the larger animals are being monitored sufficiently closely — and then by no means everywhere — for reasonably precise figures to be given. We do know that most of the species have not been evaluated, many have not been described, and some have not even been named. We know, too, that we will never know the full extent of the destruction we are causing. Unique communities with strictly limited regenerative capacities are rapidly contracting before the colonial fires of a desperate peasantry, the explosive explorations of oilmen and mining companies, the behemoths of industrialized forestry, and the persistent nibblings of innumerable goats.
18.3 IUCN's Red Data Book, the only authoritative source of information on the world's threatened animals, covers only vertebrates (animals with backbones): fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. The book lists more than a thousand species and subspecies known to be threatened with extinction: 193 types of fish, 138 amphibians and reptiles, 400 birds and 305 mammals. There are almost certainly more under threat. The Red Data Book volume on fish, for example, is weak on tropical America, Africa and Asia where the status of freshwater species is little known. Similarly, we have no means of knowing the status of small and inconspicuous vertebrates in areas such as tropical rain forests that are known to be exceptionally rich in species and are shrinking rapidly.
18.4 As for plants, lUCN's Threatened Plants Committee estimated that as many as 25,000 are threatened. This is a guess. But it is an informed guess, based on figures for those parts of the world that have been thoroughly surveyed. There are estimated to be between 200,000 and 250,000 flowering plant species. The imprecision is due partly to the realization that there are species still to be
Contents p 266 Edition June 1, 2008 discovered in botanically unexplored regions of the tropics, and partly to differences of opinion among taxonomists (the classifiers of plants) as to which forms in highly variable groups are species and which subspecies or races. Surveys of the United States by the Smithsonian Institution and of Europe by IUCN's Threatened Plants Committee for the Council of Europe have shown that an average of 10 per cent of the higher plants in those areas are threatened. The proportion is much higher in vulnerable, species-rich habitats such as islands, rain forests, deserts, Mediterranean-type areas, wetlands and coastal sites. For example, almost 18 per cent of the native flora of the Indian Ocean island of Socotra are threatened; and as many as half of Hawaii's higher plants are at risk.
19 Threats To Biodiversity
19.1 Plants are threatened in one of two main ways: by their wholesale removal by collectors, or by the destruction or alteration of their habitats. Precisely because they are so discriminating, collectors put especially severe pressure on specific groups of plants such as orchids and cactuses. In some cases, the pressure is so great that many species will have disappeared from the wild before we know their relationship with other creatures, notably their pollinators and seed dispersers. Since their pollination and dispersal mechanisms are sometimes bizarre and often highly specialized, not only will a fascinating detail be lost for ever, but an insect or other animal dependent on that plant may also be exterminated.
19.2 Habitat destruction is also the main problem for animals. Analysis of the Red Data Book shows that 67 per cent of the species listed are threatened by loss or contamination of their habitats. Other important threats are over-exploitation (affecting 37 per cent of species), the effects of introduced exotic species (affecting 19 per cent), competition with people for food (affecting 7 per cent) and accidental killing (affecting 2 per cent of threatened species but having a much wider impact on species that are not yet threatened).
20 Why Does Wildlife Matter?
20.1 The history of human use of plant and animal species shows the value of rescuing species from extinction and demonstrates that vanishing and apparently insignificant species can suddenly and unexpectedly become useful and important. The 'pescado blanco' Chirostoma estor, a fish which in the wild occurs in a single Mexican lake, was until recently in danger of extinction as a result of overfishing, habitat degradation, and predation and competition by introduced species. Now, as a result of good management and artificial propagation, the fish is being stocked in several reservoirs and dams and a 15 hectare (37 acre) farm is under construction.
20.2 Wild plants and animals are essential for modern medicine. They are used directly in the production of medicines and other drugs and as starting materials for drug synthesis, and they contribute indirect}y both by providing ideas for chemical compounds that can be synthesized and by helping in the general advance of biological, and hence medical, understanding. According to one
Contents p 267 Edition June 1, 2008 analysis, more than 40 per cent of the prescriptions each year in the USA contain a drug of natural origin — either from higher plants (25 per cent) or microbes (13 per cent) or from animals (3 per cent) — as sole active ingredient or as one of the main ones. The same study reports that in the USA alone the value of medicines just from higher plants is about $3000 million a year. Furthermore, of 76 major pharmaceutical compounds obtained from plants, only seven can be synthesized at competitive prices. Reserpine, for example, can be commercially isolated from natural sources for about 50% of the cost of synthesising it.
20.3 The battle by plants and animals for space, food and protection from predators and parasites turns every species into a factory for the production of chemical compounds. It would be impossible for us to invent these compounds. Indeed there are so many of them that it may prove impossible just to discover them, and certainly will be if species and habitat destruction persists. All that we have to do is allow our fellow species to survive, and men will have a vast and incredibly variegated ideas bank for as long as they survive.
20.4 Many industries besides the food and pharmaceutical industries are based, or depend heavily, on wild plants and animals, and many use them often in quite unsuspected ways. For example, algin from brown seaweeds is used in paints, dyes, building materials (insulation products, sealing compounds, artificial wood), fire-extinguishing foams, paper products, lubricants and coolants in oil drilling, and cosmetics, shampoos and soaps.
20.5 Natural areas and wild species supply a multitude of emotional and recreational benefits. National parks and other protected areas attract growing numbers of domestic and foreign visitors. The beauty and behaviour of all kinds of plants and animals delight, inspire and instruct. The sounds, shapes, colours, scents, textures and tastes of the natural world continue to inspire musicians, architects, artists, designers, perfumers and cooks.
20.6 The beauty and vivacity of tropical forests could generate an income from tourism quite as substantial. In a few countries, a start has already been made. Luquillo Forest Park in Puerto Rico, for example, attracts half a million visitors a year. The potential is enormous, for there is a surfeit of sights and sounds to delight the visitor. In no other plant community are epiphytes (hanging plants) more abundant or ostentatious. Nowhere else do so many trees exhibit cauliflory, the curious habit of bearing flowers directly on the trunk or larger branches. Only in the tropical forest can the visitor be quite so stimulated yet refreshed by the exuberant inventiveness of so many sounds at once, by turns exquisite, absurd and astonishing.
20.7 The life of the seas is a treasure trove of beauty, amusement, emotional stimulus and intellectual challenge, right at the back door of all but 28 of the world's 140 or so countries. Coral reefs have the visual richness of tropical rain forests with the advantage that they can be seen more easily, since the visitor is above or among the action rather than well below it. Fish are the easiest of all wildlife to watch. Molluscs have inspired an enthusiastic following, the miniature architecture of shells making them attractive both to the eye and to the hand.
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20.8 The bond between people and the natural world is expressed by different cultures in many ways. Nations, provinces, communities and individuals often make symbols of plants and animals. Some most attractive landscapes, such as the rice terraces of the Phillippines, are products of a synthesis of culture and nature. People become very attached to places of great natural beauty with important historical or other cultural associations. The cedars of Lebanon, now reduced to mere remnants, have long been lauded by poets, prophets and historians as symbols of strength and eternity.
20.9 Wildlife dominates the art, architecture and traditional ceremonies of Papua New Guinea. Animal products are widely used as body ornaments and for cultural exchanges such as bride price. A typical bride price payment might consist of 20 goldlip mother of pearl shells, 3 bailer shells, 15 cowrie shells, 29 pairs of birds of paradise, 12 pesquet parrot headdresses and 10 other feathered headdresses. Birds of paradise have long had a special place in native life, and the plumes are coveted for traditional ceremonies and bride price. The indigenous plume trade is organized essentially to meet a solid economic and cultural demand, deeply interwoven with the habits and traditions of tribes such as the Chimbu.
20.10 The study of plants and animals has launched new scientific disciplines of fields of discovery. Understanding of human genetics has been advanced by understanding the genetics of horseshoe crabs and of fruit flies. Development and reproductive biology began with the study of sea urchin eggs. Natural products also provide essential materials for scientific research. For example, because of its special properties, top-quality agar from red seaweeds is almost uniquely valuable in microbiology as an all-purpose culture medium.
20.2 Thus the natural world is our laboratory, playground and temple as well as our larder, medicine chest and store of raw materials. By impoverishing it we only impoverish ourselves and our children.
21 Preventing Extinction
21.1 Preventing the extinction of plant and animal species demands the sound planning and management of land and water uses, supported by specific measures to protect habitats, prevent over-exploitation, and ensure that native species are not harmed by introduced exotic ones. Protected areas such as parks and reserves can preserve more wild species than can zoos and botanical gardens, but to be fully effective both forms of preservation must be part of a programme of rational resource management. This is because it is possible to set aside in protected areas only a small proportion of the earth's surface. If these areas were to become islands in a sea of progressively deteriorating environments, the areas themselves would shrink and support fewer species, being deprived of their support systems. Furthermore, in the case of migratory or wide- ranging animals, protected areas can safeguard only the most vulnerable habitats. Outside those areas, additional measures are necessary.
21.2 Where an introduced exotic species is threatening the survival of native species, the introduced species should be eliminated if possible. Given the
Contents p 269 Edition June 1, 2008 extreme difficulty of eliminating introduced species, however, every effort should be made to prevent all introductions except those which, before the introduction is made, can be shown to provide economic, social and ecological benefits substantially greater than any costs, and over which adequate control can be exercised. A proposed introduction should be the subject of an environmental assessment, including a full inquiry into the likely and possible ecological effects.
21.3 So many species are threatened by habitat destruction and habitats are being wrecked on so wide a front that it is essential to focus on those areas where the reward for a given effort will be greatest. These are the areas where species facing similar problems are concentrated and, therefore, where one set of conservation actions is likely to help many more than one species.
21.4 The most promising way of dealing with it on a global scale is through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). CITES is still very young. Drawn up in Washington in 1973 it did not come into force until July 1975. There were then 10 parties. Now there are 58. This represents a marked advance and one which, in comparison with many other international conventions, represents a very decent growth rate. Yet so long as non-members still greatly outnumber members and so long as the ranks of the former include certain prolific traders in wildlife — Austria, Belgium, Japan among the developed nations, and Colombia, Mexico, Singapore, in the developing world — control will be patchy, even if member countries are performing as they should.
21.5 International agreements like CITES can provide a legally binding means of ensuring that the conservation objectives they are concerned with are achieved. Because of their force, they are extremely important for the implementation of the World Conservation Strategy. The stronger agreements need the constant, vigorous support of governments, non-governmental organizations, and international organizations; and the weaker ones need strengthening.
21.6 Besides CITES, there are two other strong global conservation agreements: the World Heritage Convention , and the Migratory Species Convention. The World Heritage Convention recognizes the obligation of every nation to protect those unique natural and cultural areas which are of such international value that they are part of the heritage of all mankind, and the corresponding obligation of the international community to help them. It is important that all nations join the Convention and contribute generously to the World Heritage Fund set up to help to finance it. The Fund does not reduce the responsibility of each state to protect its unique natural areas, but it does provide a means of ensuring that those areas are not lost because of a local lack of money or skills.
21.7 International agreements are the only effective way of protecting animals that cross national boundaries. The Migratory Species Convention, which obliges its members to protect endangered migratory species and to make special agreements for the conservation of those species whose status (it was adopted on 23 June 1979) and several major nations, such as Canada, the USA and the USSR, have not yet signed it.
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21.8 Their reluctance is due to the agreement covering fish and other migratory species of the seas. Many major fishing nations do not wish to have their fishing activities subject to the control of an international conservation agreement. Yet, of all the migratory animals most in need of improved protection, fish are perhaps the most neglected. It is essential that a great deal of pressure be put on governments to join the Migratory Species Convention and to implement it without delay.
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22 Getting Organised For Conservation
22.1 The action described above is specific to the more important conservation problems of agricultural systems, forests, the sea and endangered species. They are not concerned with the more fundamental and widespread obstacles to conservation. In this chapter, therefore, are described the priority actions to overcome the six main obstacles to conservation:
Absence of conservation at the policy-making level. Lack of environmental planning and of rational use allocation. Poor legislation and organization. Lack of training and of basic information. Lack of support for conservation. Lack of conservation-based rural development.
22.2 As well as taking the specific measures that will be discussed later, every country should prepare its own conservation strategy. Besides helping to focus efforts to overcome the obstacles to conservation, the purpose of national conservation strategies is to accelerate the achievement of conservation objectives by identifying priorities, stimulating action, raising public consciousness and proposing ways of overcoming any apathy or resistance there might be to taking the action needed. Although the planning and execution of conservation strategies is primarily the responsibility of governments, non-governmental organizations should be fully involved to ensure that all the resources available to conservation are deployed coherently and to the full. Indeed in some countries non- governmental organizations may wish to take the initiative.
23 Preparing A National Strategy
23.1 Anyone preparing a national conservation strategy will need to bear in mind both the general strategic functions mentioned in Chapter I and also four strategic principles that are specific to conservation strategies:
- Integrate. The separation of conservation from development together with narrow sectoral approaches to living resource management are at the root of current living resource problems. Many of the priority requirements demand a cross- sectoral, inter-disciplinary approach.
- Keep options open. Our understanding of the dynamics and capacities of many ecosystems, particularly tropical ones, is often insufficient to assure rational use allocation or high quality management. Scientific knowledge of the productive capacities of most tropical ecosystems, as well as of their ability to absorb pollution and other impacts, is generally inadequate. Land and water use, therefore, should be located and managed so that as many options as possible are retained.
- Mix cure with prevention. Current problems are often so severe that it is tempting to concentrate on them alone. Impending problems could be still
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worse, however, unless early action is taken to prevent them. Strategies for action should therefore be a judicious combination of cure and prevention. They should tackle current problems and equip peoples and governments to anticipate and avoid future problems.
- Focus on causes as well as symptoms. When conservation puts itself into the position of dealing only with symptoms it appears unduly negative and obstructive. A late attempt to stop or modify a development, whether successful or not, comes across as anti-development (hence anti- people) even though this is seldom the case. The result is either an outright defeat or, because it generates hostility and misconceptions, a victory that has within it the seeds of future defeats. Furthermore, by the time symptoms appear it is often too late to do anything about them, because many ecologically unsound projects are the results of already fixed policies, and part of complex and expensive plans that governments are understandably reluctant to unravel. This said, it is also important not to neglect the symptoms. Although interventions are more effective the earlier in the development process they are made, in practice they are needed at all stages. Moreover, it is sometimes not possible to deal with causes, since many of them are complex and beyond the capabilities of conservation organizations to influence. Action directed at causes generally yields results only over the long term. Symptoms may be so acute that action must be taken immediately.
24 Policy Making
24.1 At the heart of the general failure to achieve the objectives of conservation are the beliefs held by many governments that conservation is a limited independent sector, usually concerned with wildlife or with soil, and that ecological factors are obstacles to development which in some cases may safely be overlooked and in others may be considered simply on a project-by-project basis, not as a matter of policy. These beliefs may not be stated, but they are implicit in the way policies are formulated and in how the plans and programmes derived from those policies are operated.
24.2 This narrow interpretation of conservation has at least three important consequences.
First, the ecological effects of a particular development policy are seldom anticipated and hence the policy is not adjusted in time to avoid expensive mistakes.
Second, those sectors directly concerned with living resources (notably agriculture, forestry, fisheries and wildlife) are often forced to concentrate on exploitation at the expense of conservation, with the result that otherwise renewable resources are squandered and the resource base of future use is undermined.
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Third (and as a consequence of the first two) other sectors, which though not directly concerned with living resources depend on them at least in part, find their policies frustrated because of a previous lack of conservation. The energy sector's forecasts of the life of a hydroelectric power station, for example, may be completely falsified by poor watershed management.
24.3 Even when ecological factors are considered, it is seldom at the critical policy-making stage when the basic pattern of development is often fixed. When ecological considerations are not integrated with policy making, natural resources are often destroyed, economic opportunities are lost, and development projects produce harmful side-effects or fewer benefits or even fail altogether. Although taking account of ecological factors later on, such as when a project comes up for environmental impact assessment is necessary, it is not enough. By that time adjustments other than cosmetic ones are seldom possible, except at the cost of great social or economic disruption.
24.4 For example, attempts to minimize the ecological harm (and hence the social and economic harm) of a dam rarely succeed if ecological factors are considered only at the project stage. By then the dam is a key component of other major projects (such as land clearance, irrigation, and new settlements), themselves essential parts of several sectoral programmes. These programmes are often expressions of social and economic policies from which ecological considerations are entirely absent. Unless ecological considerations influence the development process as much as do social and economic considerations, and unless there is also an explicit policy to achieve conservation objectives, the prospects of avoiding ecological harm and making the best of living natural resources are dim.
24.5 Living resource agencies often concentrate on exploitation rather than conservation because of the intense competition within governments for scarce financial resources, and the consequent pressure on all sectors to show results that can be directly related to economic performance. Under the circumstances, agencies with the dual task of regulating and promoting resource development are likely to find it difficult to balance the two. This difficulty is exacerbated by the lack of a well defined and generally agreed measure of conservation performance. Economic perfomance can be measured in terms of gross domestic product (GDP); employment in terms of the percentage of the labour force employed; agricultural, forestry and fisheries production in terms of crop, timber and fish yields and the income derived from them. While such easily measured production may be won at the cost of reducing the resource base, and although conservation can bring real benefits by securing that resource base, the costs and benefits are not readily related.
24.6 The lack of an acceptable measure of conservation performance is probably one of the main reasons why central agencies with broad powers to protect the environment nonetheless find it difficult to persuade, for example, the forestry department to exploit forests sustainably, or the agricultural department to regulate the use of agricultural chemicals. It also makes it difficult to relate conservation policy goals to other policy goals and therefore to make rational trade-offs between them.
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24.7 Three measures are required to overcome these problems and to integrate conservation with development at the policy-making level: anticipatory environmental policies; a cross-sectoral conservation policy; and a broader system of national accounting.
24.8 Policies aimed at anticipating significant economic, social and ecological events rather than simply reacting to them are becoming increasingly necessary for the achievement of several important policy goals: the satisfaction of basic needs, such as food, clothing, sanitation and shelter; the optimum use of available resources; the provision of a high quality environment; and the prevention of pollution and other forms of environmental degradation. To achieve these goals, policies are required that actively promote human health and well-being. These include the protection of the living resource base, the adoption of resource- conserving settlement patterns, transport systems and modes of trade and consumption, and recycling (including closed-cycle industrial processes). Attempts should also be made to reduce the production, marketing and disposal of products dangerous to the environment, and to make economic use of residual wastes.
24.9 Adoption of anticipatory environmental policies poses certain difficulties. By their very nature they require action before damage to the environment has created a demand for it. They also incur the costs of planning, research and preventive action and perhaps those of delays or modifications to particular developments. Yet, in general, these difficulties are heavily outweighed by the advantages.
24.10 Anticipatory policies enable societies to avoid the high and: annually recurring costs of environmental mistakes, which can frustrate development objectives, waste resources, and impair the very capacity for development. Measures to prevent environmental degradation taken at the design stage of products and development projects alike are normally more cost-effective than measures taken once a problem has arisen when they require redesign, restructuring, the banning of a product or the abandonment of a partly completed project.
24.11 It is essential that everywhere conservation be conducted on a much more comprehensive basis. This requires all governments to establish a cross-sectoral conservation policy at the highest level, making a public commitment to the achievement of conservation objectives without delay. Not all governments have explicit conservation policies, and the policies that exist tend to be narrowly sectoral. Consequently, opportunities for the joint planning and realization of the conservation requirements of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, wildlife, etc may be overlooked. Indeed, the policies of the sectors concerned may conflict. Similarly, the interests of sectors not usually thought of as deriving benefits from living resource conservation may be neglected.
24.12 Conservation has an important contribution to make to the successful operation of a great many government programmes, including human settlements, health, agriculture, fisheries and industry. It can, for example, help a health
Contents p 275 Edition June 1, 2008 programme, not only by promoting a healthier environment and safeguarding water supplies, but also by preserving the genetic resources needed for the production of medicines. In addition. as a matter of policy, the primary mission of government agencies directly concerned with living resources should be conservation. The need for food, fuel and fibre and other natural products, as well as for foreign exchange, may tempt living resource managers into encouraging or permitting over-exploitation of the resources in question or the undermining of the ecological processes and genetic diversity on which they depend. This is highly likely if policy goals are concerned mainly with production and only incidentally with maintenance.
25 Costs Of Conservation
25.1 The costs of conservation as well as of measures to improve human welfare in other ways, may often appear to outweigh the benefits, since the costs are entirely calculable in money while the benefits are not. This is not a deficiency of conservation, nor of economics, but is the result of extending the use of economic tools to policy areas where they are not applicable. In evaluating the costs and benefits of conservation (and of many other human endeavours), it is useful to distinguish four kinds of value:
—economic or market value, calculable in money terms; —useful, expressed as utility for persons or welfare for society; —intrinsinc, valued without reference to usefulness or to things that can be bought in its place; —symbolic, standing for something else that is valued, usually something abstract (like conservation or development).
25.2 Thus a whale may be of economic value to commercial whalers, of useful value to subsistence hunters, of intrinsic value to other people for its beauty, and of symbolic value to still others as a symbol of conservation. Economic and useful values can be quantified, in terms of money and in terms of whatever measure is appropriate (for example, weight or protein in the case of meat) respectively. Useful values can sometimes also be quantified without distortion in terms of money, but by no means always. Intrinsic and symbolic values can scarcely ever be quantified without making a mockery of them.
25.3 It is wise to distinguish carefully between each of these kinds of value. Many proposed public works, for example, have an unstated symbolic value (symbolizing 'development' or 'progress') and great efforts may be made to inflate estimates of the economic benefits and deflate those of the costs in order to accommodate the project's symbolic worth. When cost-benefit analyses attempt to put a price on items of useful, intrinsic or symbolic value, the assumptions behind such price fixing should be made explicit, so that the policy maker can decide what weight to give the various factors in the analysis. Also, for adequate account to be taken of the costs of destroying or damaging living resources and of the benefits of conserving them, non-economic indicators of conservation performance should be selected for inclusion in national accounting systems. This is easier said than done, but possible indicators are outlined below.
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- Extent of most suitable agricultural land that has not been lost to non- agricultural activities or degraded by poor farming practices. - Silt load of rivers as a proportion of the size of the river basin (as a measure of erosion). - Proportion of unique species and of unique varieties of domesticated plants and animals whose survival is secured. - Proportion of resource ecosystems and species which are being exploited sustainably.
26 Planning And Use-Allocation
26.1 Environmental planning and the allocation of uses on the basis of planning are essential if optimum use is to be made of available resources. Without them, the prospects of conservation and sustainable development will be impaired, sometimes permanently. For example, dams may be silted so that they drown and destroy highly productive land or important areas of genetic diversity. Pollution emission standards may be set so low that acid rain reduces the productivity of forests and freshwaters, or pathogens and heavy metals contaminate food (such as shellfish) rendering it unmarketable or, if it is marketed, directly damaging human health. Industries and settlements may be built on the best farmland or on land 'reclaimed' from coastal wetlands, thus reducing the productivity of agriculture and fisheries.
26.2 To ensure that environmental planning is as sound as possible, an integrated method of land and water evaluation is needed. Many countries already evaluate land for different uses. For example, the US Soil Conservation Service assesses land according to a detailed classification system. This takes account of soil types, the slope and drainage of the land, the rockiness of the soil and its susceptibility to erosion, and similar factors. Like most land capability assessments, it is thus primarily concerned with the capability of land for agriculture and forestry.
26.3 What is now needed is an extension of this type of assessment. Land areas should be evaluated not only for their agricultural capabilities but also for other qualities that make them important for conservation. These include watershed protection; the provision of critical habitats (for breeding, sheltering young, feeding, resting) for threatened, unique or culturally and economically important species; and areas important for the preservation of genetic diversity (such as unique areas, representative samples of different types of area, and areas rich in species or in important varieties). At the same time, freshwater and marine areas — including important coastal wetlands and shallows, genetically rich areas, areas that support actual or potential fisheries, and critical habitats—should also be evaluated.
26.4 In this way all of the significant living resource aspects of a country can be evaluated rather than just a somewhat arbitrary selection of them. This is particularly important since often one form of living resource use may conflict with another. For example, an exclusively agricultural assessment may regard a
Contents p 277 Edition June 1, 2008 wetland as being a fine candidate for conversion to farmland, thereby depriving a valuable fishery of essential support.
26.5 Ecosystem evaluations (EEs) can vary in detail depending on their purpose. For policy makers EEs need only be at the level of a reconnaissance: a broad inventory of ecosystems and their characteristics at national and subnational scales, with evaluation that is largely qualitative. EEs at this level are integrating mechanisms. They enable policy makers to take account of ecological, social and economic criteria simultaneously, and thus to make informed choices before resources are irrevocably committed. They can suggest those development opportunities likely to be both productive and sustainable, and show where trade- offs between one policy and another may be expected to be large or small. If all policies were adjusted at this point, many resource conflicts could be minimized, and others resolved without social or economic disruption.
26.6 EEs will need to be supplemented by more detailed environmental impact assessments (ElAs) of proposed policies, laws, programmes and projects. ElAs are an indispensable means of scrutinizing proposed actions for their likely ecological and other consequences. Governments should ensure that all major developments—including those (such as aid projects) they take abroad and actions with effects on other countries (for example, the damming of a river that flows into another country, or the construction of a power plant that might pollute another country's air)—are assessed thoroughly for their environmental impact. This also requires the examination of alternatives to the proposal assessed and a review of all such assessments by an independent body.
26.7 EEs, supplemented by ElAs, will provide the policy maker with an analysis of the capacity of land and water areas to supply particular goods and services (or fulfil particular functions). In order to make optimum use of the identified supply characteristics of these areas, it is recommended that the procedure for allocating uses be conducted roughly as follows. First, uses should be allocated tentatively according to their compatibility with the areas' supply characteristics as determined by EEs. Areas with potential for multiple use should be identified, and such uses specified. Second, the current and projected pattern of demand on these areas, as reflected by current use, should be analysed. Here, demand equals present uses of, plus impacts on, the areas. Current uses of each area should be identified and projected increases and changes in demand indicated. At this stage demand for non-living resources (construction materials, minerals, oil, gas, space for roads and buildings) as well as the effects of energy consumption and settlement patterns should be included. Uses should then be allocated tentatively a second time, according to this analysis of present and projected demand. Finally, the results of allocation by supply characteristics and of allocation by demand characteristics should be compared to reveal conflicts and compatibilities between the two. Conflicts can often be avoided by zoning, but if this is not possible their resolution will be a matter of political judgement.
27 Organization Training And Education
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27.1 Policies are of little value unless there is a capacity to implement them. This may seem obvious enough, but many countries fail to implement their living resource policies (however good they may be) because legislation, organization, training and information are inadequate. This failure is one of the biggest obstacles to the achievement of conservation.
27.2 In many countries legislation concerning living resources is marred by gaps, duplication and even conflicts. A still more common and especially serious problem is the failure to implement laws and regulations whatever their quality. Sometimes lack of implementation is due to the law being so stringent that people must flout it to survive. Generally, however, it is because the law implies a governmental commitment and infrastructure that simply do not exist. Legislation may, for example, authorize the sale of pesticides only upon a written affidavit that the pesticide has been tested, yet the facilities for testing may be inadequate. Often when budgets are entirely inadequate for enforcement, penalties are weak and jurisdictional conflicts between agencies or between central government and local government prevent the law from being implemented.
27.3 The most widespread reason for failure of implementation is a lack of trained personnel. In some African countries the lack of environmental lawyers means that out-of-date colonial laws are not revised or another country's legislation is duplicated without being adapted to local conditions. Lack of trained staff is also the major constraint on the implementation of other conservation measures.
27.4 Some countries need people trained in living resource management, such as foresters and watershed managers. Indonesia, for example, currently has only 400 foresters, or one forester per 3000 square kilometres of forest (fewer than one per timber concession. The list of scientists and professionals needed by developing countries is long: ecologists, geologists, hydrologists, public health engineers, environmental economists, environmental planners and so on. Even where professional staff are available there is an acute shortage of technicians. Scientists, for example, may find themselves having to maintain their own equipment. Sometimes the shortage of technicians is exacerbated by the shortage of professionals, because successful trainee technicians may decide to continue their education so that they can achieve the higher status and salaries of the professions.
27.5 The acute lack of trained personnel in developing countries is the result of three factors: inadequate training facilities; low salaries (notably in relation to the private sector); and poor administrative organization. What foresters there are may be located only in national and provincial capitals. Because field staff are paid even less than headquarters staff, and because of the hardship of life in the field, more than half the trained foresters in Thailand work in Bangkok.
27.6 Also because of lack of money and trained personnel, many developing countries suffer from inadequate information. Generally this is because the countries' data gathering capabilities are weak, but even when they are satisfactory information flow is hampered by poor data retrieval and distribution systems. As a result of such deficiencies countries lack such basic information as estimates of
Contents p 279 Edition June 1, 2008 the extent of forest cover and rates of its removal, aquatic pollution levels and assimilative capacities, and species inventories for protected areas.
27.7 Comprehensive air and water monitoring systems are so expensive and sophisticated that only developed countries can afford them. Not enough is known about the dynamics of tropical ecosystems to develop less expensive but equally reliable systems using species as indicators of ecosystem health. The level of applied research on ecosystems and their modification needs to be stepped up considerably if policy makers are to be given better advice on such matters as the extent to which coastal wetlands can be modified, the pollution absorption capacities of freshwaters, and the most favourable cropping patterns for integrated pest control .
27.8 Although a great deal is known about many species and ecosystems, what we know about the biosphere is less than what we do not know. The dynamics and relationships of many important ecosystems are little understood. It is therefore seldom possible to predict accurately—at least not in a way that might be useful to a policy maker— the effects of human actions on a great many ecosystems without special and often lengthy research. The same generalization applies to determining sustainable yields from multi-species fisheries. Such lack of knowledge often causes difficulties between policy makers and resource managers on the one hand and the ecologists and other scientists that advise them on the other. The former expect clear and precise advice; the latter cannot avoid stressing the real and important uncertainties that exist.
27.9 Governments and resource users are scarcely ever in a position to defer action pending the outcome of a protracted research programme. Yet action based on inadequate knowledge carries a grave risk that it will fail or be unnecessarily destructive. Unacceptable consequences of lack of knowledge are best avoided or alleviated by good planning and management, so that development activities can be so located and conducted that risk is reduced. At the same time management needs to be more research- orientated and research more management-orientated so that the most urgently required knowledge is generated more quickly.
27.10 Every country should review the organization and funding of government agencies with responsibilities for living resources, together with the legislative provisions governing actions affecting living resources. They should take the necessary steps, including changes in legislation, to ensure that conservation policies are implemented and that the agencies concerned have the resources and staff to carry out promptly and fully ecosystem evaluations, environmental impact assessments and any other measure required for the conservation of living resources. The following general principles should form the basis for organization within government to achieve conservation:
- The different agencies with responsibilities for living resources should have clear mandates and such mandates should specify conservation. - There should be a permanent mechanism for joint consultation on and coordination of both the formulation and the implementation of policies. - Each agency should be required by statute to disclose and explain its positions to the public.
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- Policies and decisions should be implemented. Sufficient financial and other resources should be provided to make this possible. - The more limited the availability of trained planners and managers the more important it is to avoid dispersing them among agencies with narrow mandates and conflicting aims. - The policies, plans and programmes of the central, provincial and local governments of a country should be closely coordinated.
27.11 Jurisdictions should be clearly defined, and there should be a mechanism for allocating as yet unforeseen responsibilities.
27.12 Every country should also review the capacities of its universities and other centres of higher education to train professionals and technicians in the expertise and skills necessary for planning and managing living resources. National and regional training facilities should be strengthened as appropriate. To encourage recruitment at the technical level it may be necessary to provide professional recognition to technicians. Where disparities between private sector and public sector salaries accentuate the shortage of trained personnel, public sector salaries should be increased. Similarly, the salaries ot field personnel should be at least as high as those of headquarters staff, and indeed may need to be higher to compensate for poor conditions.
28 Support For Conservation
28.1 Ultimately, living resources are being destroyed because people do not see that it is in their interests not to destroy them. The benefits from natural ecosystems and their component plants and animals are regarded by all but a few as trivial and dispensable, compared with the benefits to be got from those activities that entail their destruction or degradation.
28.2 The most effective way of convincing people of the merits of conservation is to enable them to participate in the decisions concerning living resources. Local community involvement and consultation and other forms of public participation in planning, decision making and management are valuable means of testing and integrating economic, social and ecological objectives. They also provide a safeguard against poorly considered decisions and an indispensable means of educating the public in the importance and problems of conservation, and policy makers, planners and managers in the concerns of the public. Participation tends to build public confidence and improve the public's understanding of management objectives; and it provides additional data for planners and policy makers.
28.3 If the users of living resources (farmers, fishers, foresters, industries based on living resources, recreational users, etc) are unaware of the need to conserve the resource they are using, an education campaign should be prepared for them. This also applies to other groups that may have an impact on living resources, if they are unaware of the need to manage their activities in ways that are as compatible as possible with conservation. Similarly, if government does not recognize the need to meet the conservation requirements concerned, special
Contents p 281 Edition June 1, 2008 efforts will be needed to direct information on the importance of such requirement to the appropriate legislators and decision makers.
28.4 Advantage should be taken of circumstances in which legislators, decision makers and others may be induced to pursue policies of conservation. Some sets of favourable circumstances are outlined below.
- When pro-conservation decisions are evidently the most profitable. - When pro-conservation decisions are an effective way of achieving other policy objectives. - If political leaders are personally convinced that conservation policies are the right course to pursue. - If the electorate supports conservation policies and makes it clear that it will vote for those policies. - If influential groups within the country are educated in and committed to conservation policies.
28.5 Organizers of education programmes should determine the main target groups of the programmes, define precise programme objectives, and select the media and techniques that are most effective with the target groups. The techniques and materials used should be regularly evaluated against the stated objectives. The most important target groups are:
— governments and legislators; — development practitioners, industry and commerce, and trades unions; — professional bodies and special interest groups; communities most affected by conservation projects; schoolchildren and students.
28.6 Ultimately the behaviour of entire societies towards the biosphere must be transformed if the achievement of conservation objectives is to be assured. A new ethic, embracing plants and animals as well as people, is required for human societies to live in harmony with the natural world. The long-term task of environmental education is the fostering or reinforcement of attitudes and behaviour compatible with this new ethic.
29 Sustaininable Rural Development
29.1 A great many rural people, especially in developing countries, are extremely poor, some 1200 million people have been classified by the United Nations as 'seriously poor' (of whom almost 800 million are 'destitute') with 500 million suffering from malnutrition. In their effort to satisfy their needs for food and fuel, the rural poor strip the land of trees and shrubs for firewood, clear steep and unstable slopes for cultivation, overgraze pastures, and overhunt and overfish the local wildlife. As a result the daily survival decisions of the poor and hungry disrupt their own life-support systems, impair ecological processes and destroy genetic and other renewable resources just as surely as do too many of the development decisions of the rich and powerful in government and industry. The rural communities responsible for this destruction seldom need to be told it is a mistake. They are made acutely aware of it by a constant and increasing lack of
Contents p 282 Edition June 1, 2008 food, fuel, and other necessities. But such communities need to be equipped to win their livelihoods using conservationist methods. Yet development is passing them by.
29.2 Rural people, because they are dispersed over very wide areas, are less advantageously placed than their urban compatriots to bring their problems to the attention of government. For the same reason, their problems are less amenable to the kinds of development that governments with a narrow tax base, inadequate institutions, poor delivery of services to rural areas and a vociferous urban population usually initiate. It is ostensibly easier, and certainly more visible, to plan, finance and manage a few large-scale projects than to promote and oversee many village-scale projects. Even though it is still easier to obtain international finance for big developments, such as pulp mills, dams, or international airports, their planning and management leave much to be desired. They are often short- lived or marred by harmful side-effects, and they yield few benefits to the rural poor.
29.3 Furthermore, developments that do bring real benefits, such as improved health services, better veterinary services, new wells, and higher yielding crop varieties, also bring additional changes to a situation that is already changing rapidly because of sheer pressure of numbers. But such developments come separately and not as part of a coordinated rural development programme, and they often end up by worsening problems of the rural poor. For example, improved veterinary care, new wells and the opening up of previously uninhabitable land by the eradication or control of diseases such as trypanosomiasis have enabled pastoralists to increase their livestock numbers and provided them with new areas of grazing land in part compensation for areas lost to farmers. However, where these developments have not been accompanied by effective provisions for better pasture management, the eventual result is usually heavy overgrazing and often irreversible soil degradation. Similarly, the change from shifting cultivation to settled arable farming, which is essential when the cultivation/fallow cycle becomes unstable and pressure on soil and vegetation increases, can cause still greater erosion unless farmers are equipped to apply the necessary soil conservation measures. In rural development, as in development generally, the narrow sectoral approach is almost invariably self-defeating.
29.4 Rural communities need help to conserve their living resources as the essential basis of the development without which they cannot survive. If soil and vegetation need to be restored, they must be given a respite from intensive use. This requires integrated action to reduce livestock numbers (possibly through price supports that encourage sale to market), increase the efficiency of food production on nearby farms, employ local people in replanting and reseeding schemes, and provide alternative settlement areas and alternative sources of water and fuel and other services (health, education, job training, etc).
29.5 Protected areas and other conservation measures may restrict access to fuel, food, forage and other products. Compensatory measures, including pasture improvement, the establishment of fuelwood plantations and the provision of credit or alternative food, fuel or fibre, will then be needed. If the measures concerned take time to bear fruit they must be supplemented by measures bringing
Contents p 283 Edition June 1, 2008 immediate benefits. For example, if a protected area or a watershed forest is threatened by wood-cutting for fuel, it will be necessary not only to establish a fuelwood plantation but also to provide an alternative source of fuel that can be used at once. It would also be prudent to provide the community concerned with the means of conserving fuel supplies, such as more efficient cookers.
29.6 If land is eroding so rapidly that it must be retired, there is seldom any alternative to the generally difficult tasks of resettling the farmers concerned elsewhere or of absorbing them into other sectors of the economy. It is desirable, therefore, to prevent situations where land retirement is the only solution by promoting systems of production adapted to ecological conditions, in which modern technology and techniques are integrated with traditional systems of resource management. This is particularly important for communities whose shifting cultivation practices have become unstable because the rising population demands more intensive production than the soil can support without considerable improvement.
29.7 The techniques and inputs of sustainable permanent cropping, such as fertilizers, improved seed, and soil conservation measures, are usually beyond the economic means of poor farmers. But it is possible to shorten the fallow period of shifting cultivation gradually through mixed cropping practices, the limited use of inorganic fertilizers, and recycling organic materials. It is also possible to improve the efficiency of the fallow period by substituting the natural cover with cover crops, some of which (pasture for livestock in mixed agri-pastoral systems and tree crops in mixed agri-silvicultural systems) can be used economically.
29.8 Many tropical soils quickly lose their fertility. Traditional systems of shifting cultivation restored fertility by leaving the land fallow for long periods, but under continuous cropping fertilizers are indispensable. Manufactured fertilizers are beyond the means of many developing country farmers because of their high costs, low prices for farm products, shortage of credit and a lack of fertilizer supplies at national or local level. The estimated 113 million tonnes of plant nutrients that are potentially available to developing countries from human and livestock wastes and from crop residues should, therefore, as far as possible be used to fertilize the land. The use of organic wastes as plant nutrients and soil restorers can be combined with the production of biogas (methane). This process eases the problems of storing and delivering organic wastes, reduces the loss of organic matter through decomposition and provide gas for domestic uses.
29.9 For conservation-based rural development to be successful, there will need to be more research into sustainable systems of producing food and other goods from the rural sector. Moreover training and incentives programmes will have to be instituted to encourage and equip rural communities to adopt those systems that are known to work now. An indispensable incentive and ultimately the one most likely to work is demonstration within the communities concerned that the new systems provide a higher quality of life using the resources to hand.
29.10 Many traditional methods of living resource management, however, are worth retaining or reviving, either in their original or in modified forms. For example, field experiments with traditional cropping systems in various parts of
Contents p 284 Edition June 1, 2008 the world have demonstrated that many of these systems bring high yields, conserve nutrients and moisture, and suppress pests. The efficiency of traditional cropping systems can often be increased not by introducing completely different ones but by identifying those elements which could be improved and making the appropriate improvement. For example, Indonesian combinations of corn and rice have been shown to be not only resistant to pests but also more responsive than monocultures to applications of nitrogen fertilizer. The original strategy of the so- called 'green revolution' of replacing tropical poly- cultures (growing a number of crops together) with temperate-style monocultures is increasingly being reversed. The new strategy is to retain the most productive elements of tropical polycultures and improve the remainder.
29.11 The quickest and speediest way of meeting the needs of the needy majority is through the use of resources to hand. The poor do not regard living resources as superfluousor as a fad of the rich. For them they are absolutely essential. When they destroy those resources by farming unsuitable land, gathering too much wood, or overhunting and overfishing local wildlife, it is not through greed or irresponsibility, nor from a feeling that there is plenty more where it came from, nor in many cases from ignorance. It is from sheer desperation.
29.12 The poor sometimes take into their own hands the protection of the natural areas on which their fate hangs. Hundreds of Indian villagers in the Himalayas have decided that the best way to save their trees is to hug them. They have started what they call Chipko Andolan, the hugging movement. They fling their arms around trees that are about to be felled, and, in Gandhian style, non- violently prevent the logging contractors from working. The Chipko people want the forests restored to their own use because their subsistence economy depends on the forests. They also want the watershed to be protected. Since the forests were opened to commercial exploitation, felling has been excessive and has produced predictable results: erosion, siltation of rivers and floods.
30 Tribal Minorities
30.1 A surprisingly large number of people still live in tribal groups, feeding themselves and meeting most of their other needs directly from hunting, fishing, plant gathering or farming. Their role in the cash economies that surround them is modest, although increasingly they are being drawn into them. But the special needs of tribal minorities are often overlooked. Development goes ahead, ostensibly to benefit all people, with scarcely any thought that it might be destroying both their means of survival and their cultures.
30.2 In Africa, Asia and South America, the drowning of land by dams and the felling of forests for commercial timber production or for cattle ranching too often displace small farming communities. Their members have to make do with less, become casual wage earners or drift to the cities.
30.3 In Alaska, the over-exploitation of the few Arctic resources considered profitable (whales, seals, salmon, etc) has forced many self-sufficient Inuit in the Arctic zone of North America to depend. at least in part, on welfare. Now oil and
Contents p 285 Edition June 1, 2008 gas development threatens to undermine their subsistence base entirely. Such development will pollute or degrade the habitats of fish and game; stimulate ancillary developments, such as roads, pipelines and settlements, which disturb wildlife and may destroy the environments on which it depends; and attract large numbers of people, many of whom take up hunting and fishing for sport and so compete with the Inuit for their livelihood (the number of sport fishing licences rose from 4450 in 1940 to 124,000 in 1973).
30.4 Even modest and well-meaning developments can be devastating. The Botswana Government is trying to expand the national cattle herd and increase beef export revenues. Areas of the Kalahari that once supported no cattle at all, or a few infrequently, are now being ranched or opened up to Tswana herdsmen. Cattle, however, are not well adapted to semi-arid conditions. Unlike native animals (such as the great antelopes), they have to drink every other day, crowding around watering points and overgrazing limited areas. They break up the fragile sand surface, beginning a probably irreversible process of dune formation and invasion by woody plants and non-nutritious grasses, useless to cattle and game alike. The sinking of boreholes enables cattle to compete with game in areas they would not otherwise enter, and upsets the delicate water balance of the desert by allowing water to be consumed more quickly than it can be replenished.
30.5 The once lush areas of eastern Botswana are now desert because of uncontrolled grazing. The drier parts of the Kalahari proper are much less able to withstand this sort of pressure. It might be possible to ranch indigenous game animals, but to extend the area of cattle production is ecological and economic suicide. By thus transforming semi-desert into true desert, even hunting and gathering are rendered impossible, and the survival and relative well- being of thousands of people imperilled.
30.6 Most tribal minorities have ceased to be self-sufficient. With the centralization of their communities into conventional settlements, native Alaskans need motorboats and snow machines to reach those parts of their hunting territories in which formerly they lived. The San hunter- gatherers of the Kalahari are beginning to want to learn how to read and write so that they can meet the pressures of the cash economy with at least some of its weapons. The small farmers of the tropical forests need steel implements and adequate health services. New diseases demand new cures and altered environments require changes in the technologies of their exploitation.
30.7 Planning and policy making for tribal peoples the world over assume for them the Hobson's choice of neglect on the one hand or proletariatization on the other, of total participation in either the subsistence economy or the cash economy. Neither alternative is possible nor desirable in the foreseeable future, nor (as far as they have been consulted) does either seem to be desired by the peoples themselves.
30.8 If tribal minorities are forced to abandon the bulk of their subsistence activities, they will be thrust into the limbo of poverty, which few of them suffered before contact with the cash economy. In the 1970s the Yupik Inuit's average income per person per year was $800. The US Fish and Wildlife Service
Contents p 286 Edition June 1, 2008 has estimated that if they had to buy the equivalent of the food they catch, each of them would need an additional $2200 a year. The total cost of replacing the subsistence foods of Alaska's Yukon-Kuskokwin Delta region alone would be $300 million. There are almost 40,000 other Inuits, Aleuts and Indians elsewhere in Alaska who still depend to a substantial degree on fishing, hunting and plant gathering.
30.9 Money is an inadequate measure of the loss to subsistence peoples of their own food resources. Food from shops and markets is subject to inflation; subsistence food is not. The subsistence diet is more varied and nourishing than the poor commercial diet that generally replaces it. The traditional diet of the San is one of the most protein- rich in the world, averaging 93.1 grams per person per day (the average daily per capita intake in, for example, Britain is 87.5 grams). In remote areas like most of Alaska, the Kalahari and many tropical forest regions, fresh food is almost impossible to buy. Finally, many subsistence peoples strongly prefer the food they provide for themselves to food bought in shops.
30.10 San people who have stopped hunting and gathering have become miserably indigent hangers-on to Botswana's semi-capitalist, semi-feudal cattle enterprises. Tropical farmers deprived of their subsistence have joined the flood of migrants to the towns, there to suffer a standard of living much lower than the one they knew at home. Tribal people's prospects of prosperity depend not on their being pushed into the developmental chasm between subsistence and the cash economy but on their being allowed to create a quite different economy, one which combines elements of the two. Where they have been permitted to articulate their own vision of the future, this is what the tribal minorities themselves seem to desire. The Yupik have specifically rejected both a return to a life entirely removed from the cash economy and its wholesale espousal. They would like to develop a combination of the two: to continue to get the bulk of their food by subsistence means, but to participate in commercial life to the extent , that they can earn enough money to buy ammunition, fishing gear, fuel, some clothing and furnishings. They do not want oil and gas exploitation to be halted, but slowed down and extended over many more years than is presently envisaged. They ask that habitats critical for subsistence be closed to destructive forms of development, and that elsewhere strict environmental standards be enforced. But they do not demand that development be checked entirely. For them it is the best of both worlds, or no world at all.
31 Implementing The Strategy
31.1 At the international level, the five organizations most closely involved in the Strategy's preparation (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, United Nations Environment Programme, World Wildlife Fund, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) can be expected to work closely together to promote the Strategy's implementation. They will concentrate on stimulating governments to take the action recommended in previous chapters, and within the limits of their resources they will give what help is needed to do this. For its part, IUCN will monitor implementation as closely as
Contents p 287 Edition June 1, 2008 possible, publishing regular reports, including a full progress report every three years. This will cover what governments and organizations are doing to implement the Strategy, whether what they are doing is likely to alleviate the problem or achieve the objective concerned, and at later stages the extent to which the three conservation objectives have been achieved.
31.2 Governments and voluntary organizations have already started to take action in response to the Strategy. By January 1980 New Zealand and the Soviet Union had started work on national conservation strategies. The Brazilian government was also contemplating the preparation of a national conservation strategy, and was discussing it with Brazilian conservation organizations. In Norway, a special commission chaired by the Chairman of the Norwegian Parliament was examining the status of living resource conservation in Norway. The commission had drawn on the Strategy to help it in its work. India's next economic plan has a chapter on conservation for the first time ever, an encouraging step forward stimulated it large part by the World Conservation Strategy.
31.3 National conservation action must be promoted systematically. There are several ways this can be done, but the Strategy opts for cooperative programmes involving governments, international organizations and the private sector. These programmes should have a clear focus, concentrating either on a theme (such as tropical forests or desertification) or a region. Regional strategies are a particularly useful way of stimulating national action, of helping to solve problems common to more than one country, and of advancing the conservation of shared living resources (such as a river basin or sea shared by two or more nations or a species that migrates from one country to another).
31.4 Each regional strategy should aim for at least four results:
— agreements on the joint conservation of shared living resources; — model examples of how common problems can be tackled successfully; — joint organizations where appropriate and where more cost-effective than several national organizations (for example, for training, for research and monitoring, or for the management of shared living resources); — improved information for national decision making.
31.5 Each 'region' should be an ecological unit which by definition many of the living resources will be shared. Obvious examples, and priority candidates for region, strategies, are international river basins and seas.
31.6 Perhaps the most important form of international action is the development of international conservation law and of the means to implement it. Strong international conventions or agreements provide a legally binding means of ensuring the conservation of those living resources that cannot be conserved by national legislation alone. International law also provides an often essential and always valuable set of self-imposed obligations on national behaviour, an indispensable tool in an interdependent world.
31.7 Law, however, is seldom enough. Many governments may have the will to conserve but lack the means. It is therefore essential not only that the amount of
Contents p 288 Edition June 1, 2008 development assistance going to developing countries be raised, but also that a very much greater proportion of it be spent on integrating conservation and development. The funds spent by multilateral and bilateral development assistance agencies can do a great deal towards restoring the environment, tackling environmentally induced poverty, and enabling countries to make the best use of their resources, if the projects they support are environmentally sound. These agencies should make every effort to:
- Direct funds to reforestation, the restoration of degraded environments, and the protection of watersheds, of mangroves and other critical habitats for marine resources, and of genetic resources essential for development. - Assess all projects for their ecological implications and ensure that they are ecologically sound. - Assist governments to design ecologically appropriate policies and to establish and maintain effective conservation laws and organizations.
31.8 Assistance should be made available to enable requesting nations to develop the capacity to carry out ecosystem evaluations and environmental assessments, and to implement cross-sectoral conservation policies ; through appropriate legislation, training and organization. Development agencies should assist governments to establish the laws, institutions and procedures to enable them to conserve their country's living resources.
31.9 Developing industries based wholly or partly on living resources should be encouraged and equipped to ensure that the resources are exploited sustainably, and that the genetic diversity on which ultimately they depend is preserved. Development aid agencies have a special responsibility to help (through the provision of appropriate advice and technical assistance) the recipient nation, to ensure that financial assistance makes the best use of the living resources it is likely to affect. They should endeavour to ensure that:
— the proposed development is compatible with the recipient country's national conservation policy and strategy (if it exists); — the proposed development is the most appropriate response to the capabilities of the ecosystems concerned; — as far as possible the potential of the ecosystems concerned is retained; — an environmental assessment is carried out.
31.10 Nations lacking the capacity to carry out ecosystem evaluations or environmental impact assessments or lacking adequate conservation laws, means of enforcing them, or organizations to effect the full range of required conservation measures, should seek multilateral or bilateral assistance to acquire it. If necessary, they should also seek assistance for the preparation of a conservation strategy.
31.11 Conservation is not the responsibility of governments alone. There is a great deal that the private sector can do. The three main things conservation organizations should do are:
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- Switch much of their effort to influencing policies rather than reacting to the results of such policies. When conservation is put into the position of resisting rather than guiding development, it is either ignored or, if it is successful, the effects are often expensive, socially divisive, and ultimately counter-productive. - Speed the establishment and implementation strong conservation laws and institutions, for example by promoting the adoption of international agreements that require the establishment of improvement of authorities of CITES, and encouraging countries to join them and to implement them fully. - Mount a sustained public education drive directed primarily at governments, the business community, organized labour and the professions, aimed at showing the importance of conservation and its relevance to the concerns of target groups.
31.12 To be more effective, conservationists need radically to change the public perception of their attitude to development. Too often conservationists have allowed themselves to be seen as resisting all development, although often they have been forced into that posture because they have not been invited to participate in the development process early enough. The result has been not to stop development, but to persuade many development practitioners, especially in developing countries, that conservation is not merely irrelevant but harmful and antisocial. Consequently, development has continued , unimpeded by conservationists yet with the seeds of its eventual failure lying in the ecological damage that conservation could have helped to prevent.
31.13 Conservationists should work actively and positively for sustainable development. This does not mean that everything that calls itself development (whether sustainable or not) should be taken at face value. Many illconceived policies and projects will still need to be altered or scrapped altogether. But conservationists must come to distinguish more clearly and carefully between environmental alteration that is necessary and worth the biological cost and that which is not. Then they should work with development practitioners to ensure that development is indeed environmentally sound.
31.14 Several US conservation organizations have found that a more positive approach to development and its integration with conservation pays off. They have been able to alter the policies of the US Agency for International Development (AID), which annually spends some thousand million dollars in developing countries. The US non-Government agencies have:
— ensured that AID makes environmental impact assessments before undertaking any environmentally significant activities; — persuaded the Congress to add 'environment and natural resources' to the areas in which AID is statutorily required to spend its money; — convinced the Congress to direct AID to prepare 'environmental profiles' of all the countries in which AID operates — persuaded the House of Representatives to make tropical forest protection a statutorily mandated priority for AID.
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31.15 All these policy changes were brought about by US NGOs at a cost to them of $30,000.
31.16 The price of conservation, like that of freedom, is eternal vigilance. It is essential that conservationists follow through and consolidate their successes. This means monitoring. In the case of CITES, for example, conservation organizations should monitor the implementation of CITES by the national (scientific and management) authorities. They should monitor trading in shops and through newspaper and other advertisements. They should also ensure that the annual reports and any proposals submitted by national authorities to the CITES secretariat properly reflect conditions, informing the CITES secretariat should this not be the case. Conservation organizations with monitoring experience could provide a useful service to other organizations (especially in other countries or provinces) by helping them to set up their own monitoring systems.
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32 What Can Individuals Do?
32.1 There are two kinds of action which the individual can take and which can help to speed and consolidate the Strategy's implementation. The first is to join a conservation organization and preferably one that is actively promoting (or intends to promote) the Strategy. In any case, the more living resource conservation organizations there are and the larger and more representative they are, the better. For they will then be able to act more effectively and governments will be more likely to take notice of them.
32.2 The second kind of action, and one which may appeal more than the first to individuals in countries where non-governmental organizations are few or weak or where the political climate is unfavourable for them, is the alteration of personal behaviour. Change in personal habits of consumption was a much touted form of action in industrial countries during the late 1960s and early 1970s when environmentalism was fashionable. Since then it has fallen into disfavour, partly because it can seem so trivial but largely because it can involve real sacrifice. Few of the conservationists who inveigh against excessive energy , consumption, for example, have abandoned their private cars for the admittedly erratic pleasure of public transport.
32.3 There is abundant evidence that all but the most punctilious conservationists will continue to fail to conserve the resources (whether living or non-living) they themselves use unless forced to do so by rises in price. Yet ultimately no conservation strategy or programme can succeed unless everyone actually behaves as a conservationist. Personal attempts to conserve resources may appear inconsequential in relation to the enormous problems addressed in this Strategy. At the same time they may involve apparently unjustified hardship for the individual. But such efforts are among the most significant actions, the sum of which spread throughout society will mean real and enduring success.
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INSTRUCTIONAL SYSTEMS
As every man goes through life he fills in a number of forms for the records, each containing a number of questions... There are thus hundreds of little threads radiating from every man, millions of threads in all. If these threads were suddenly to become visible, the whole sky would look like a spiders web.. Alexander Solzhenitszyn. "Cancer Ward".
"It is impossible to solve so great a puzzle by using one route only" Symacchus; a contemporary Roman commentator on the religious conflicts of the late fourth century.
1 CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
2 A SHORT COURSE IN NATURAL ECONOMY
3 STRUCTURED WRITING
4 EMPATHY MATERIAL
5 KNOWLEGE ORGANISERS
6 KNOWLEDGE NETS
7 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
8 LEARNING WITH HYPERMEDIA
9 HYPERMEDIA
10 IT METHODOLOGY
11 PERSONAL COMPUTERS
12 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
13 DATA STORAGE
14 INFORMATION CATEGORIES
15 FEATURES OF DATABASES
16 DATABASE SOFTWARE
17 FILE MANAGERS
18 RELATIONAL DATABASES
19 THE USER ENVIRONMENT
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20 ELECTRONIC LIBRARIES
21 INTERACTIVE REPORTING
22 TOOLKITS
23 GLOBAL INFORMATION NETWORKS
24 DATAFLOW
25 HIERARCHICAL SYSTEMS
26 LATERAL SYSTEMS
27 THE ENQUIRY-MODE LEARNING PRORAMME (EMP)
28 FRAMES VERSUS TABULATED CONTENTS
29 HISTORICAL MODELLING
30 DYNAMIC MODELLING
31 WINDOWS FROM THE DECORATIVE ARTS
32 EXEMPLARS OF DATABASES STRUCTURES
33 A LEARNING MODEL
34 CONCEPTUALISED LEARNING
35 LEARNING FRAMES
36 SYSTEMS THINKING
37 PRIMARY MENUS
38 SECONDARY MENUS
39 LEARNING BY CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
40 SOME TYPES OF LEARNING FRAME.
41 THINKING IN TERMS OF SYSTEMS
42 COMPUTERS AND LATERAL THINKING
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1 Curriculum Development
1.1 It is expected that curriculum development of consumermatics from basic subject matter would be designed to
- generate a personal ecological conscience; - add status to the study of agricultural landscapes; - give city children an awareness of the duty of their government to create and maintain a balanced countryside.
1.2 So far, discussions with many bodies concerned with development aid, third world education and conservation, have indicated that the subject is timely and promising. Without doubt the potential of Natural Economy is great, and it has many practical and academic aspects. These can only be explored by teachers interacting with the subject and to prepare courseware that can be used as demonstration material to introduce the subject to other educators and teachers.
1.3 There are many opportunities in curriculum development to bring out individual attitudes towards the subject matter. This is particularly the case with regard to the practical project, but the courseware can contain themes arranged in the form of programmed interactive dialogues or tutorials. Where there is not time to study the entire subject, a modular approach will be useful.
1. 4 The biggest problem encountered in presenting Natural Economy to children, is to provide a structured format in which the various interdisciplinary connections can be displayed. There are also problems from the teachers point of view in that traditionally trained teachers are usually specialists, and also require a broad subject panorama from which to work. From these points of view the training of teachers to use Natural Economy as a world development theme, is a limiting factor in classroom implementation.
1.5 The following sections present some approaches to presenting Natural Economy which have proved useful in classroom pilots.
2 Short Course In Natural Economy
2.1 The following notes give an outline of Natural Economy suitable for four 30 minute periods.
Natural Economy as a knowledge base to study world development in a local context.
Session 1 Definition of Natural Economy Session 2 Background knowledge to Natural Economy Session 3 The subject matter of Natural Economy Session 4 The practical study of Natural Economy ______
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2.2 Session 1 Definition of Natural Economy
These classes are to help you study world development by examining your own local environment.
Development means to gain commodities and services by which a population measures its standard of living.
These gains are very obvious in our surroundings.
For example, the development of a country may be seen as an increase in the number of cars, an increase in the number of supermarkets, and an increase in the amount of money spent on holidays.
However, the gains of development cannot be achieved without losses.
Gains in cars are linked with losses in the quality of the atmosphere through factory and exhaust pollution.
Gains in the convenience of packaged foods may mean losses in nutritional quality.
The gains in leisure time promote the destruction of coastal wildlife habitats, to provide the accommodation and amusements on which people want to spend their money.
Development may also mean loss of employment due to the adoption of mass production technologies. It may also result in the poor becoming poorer, because of the lack of an adequate financial base-line to take up advantages, and/or because they are isolated from mainstream flows of money and ideas. ______
Because development results in both gains and losses, it is possible to measure the gains in our standard of living, and compare them with the losses and make a development account. This account is a part of the human economy.
Development of the economy requires resources of human labour, which have to be organised socially and financially. The organisation of people in an area to make use of its natural resources for development, is described as its political economy. ______
Political economy supports development through the financing of technologies for modifying nature to meet human needs. The technological organisation of an area to make space for living, or produce goods for trade, is described as its natural economy. Political economy is concerned with questions as to who produces and what are the social gains and losses following the adoption of new methods of production. Natural economy is concerned with questions of what can be produced, and where the natural resources will come from for sustained production. Both aspects of the developing human economy are interrelated. For example, because of the sensitivity of lower income households to the economic disadvantages of development, a decision to promote a particular technology cannot be left to sociologists or scientists alone.
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______
At present, the dominant connection between political economy and natural resources is through commercialism. Commercialism puts a value on natural resources according to the price people are willing to pay to use them to make goods or to provide services. It also promotes investment in people and technologies if the financial returns are likely to be greater than the investment.
Natural Economy is therefore concerned with the technological impact of commercialism on the environment. This occurs through the influx of people, who travel to use the resources, or through the application of new technologies to exploit resources faster or more cheaply. ______
The importance of Natural Economy in the study of development is that it defines the environmental costs.
It is also the interdisciplinary body of knowledge required for managing the environment, to minimise the impact of commercial demands for natural resources. If the costs, in terms of, say losses of land or wildlife are too great, knowledge of the local natural economy may be used to devise methods to control development, in order to either reduce the losses, or prevent them altogether. Knowledge of Natural Economy may also be used to introduce new technologies for the sustainable use of limited resources, which cannot increase to keep pace with development. ______
In summary, human development is measured by gains in our standard of living, which result from the commercial exploitation of natural resources.
These gains are associated with losses in natural resources.
The subject dealing with this environmental impact of commercialism is called Natural Economy.
Natural Economy is the focus of knowledge about past and present environmental management, which can be applied to prevent the destruction of natural resources and create new methods of sustainable development. ______
2.3 Session 2 The background knowledge to Natural Economy
We use the word nature to define systems which involve the existence and arrangement of matter, forces and events, that are not controlled by man.
Natural systems are complex and unpredictable. They include all environments in which plants, animals and microbes interact with local rocks, soil and climate and are largely unaffected by human activities and creations. ______
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The orderly interplay between the various parts of a natural system is governed by physical laws. These interactions are defined as its economy.
The global economy defines the systems responsible for maintaining the earth in a dynamic state. This state involves:-
- the heat energy of its core - the kinetic energy of its rotation - the thermal energy of climate - the food energy of plant, animal, and microbial life cycles. ______
The global account of materials and energy is made up of three interlocking component economies.
- the planetary economy, which deals with effects of the earth's energy of heat and motion. - the solar economy, which deals with effects of solar radiation - the animate economy, which deals with the effects of materials and energy flows on populations of organisms living together in ecosystems. ______
We are part of nature and our existence as a species depends upon drawing a continuous supply of resources from the three global economies.
It is convenient to divide these resources, classed as natural resources into two kinds:-
- physical resources which are derived in the main from the planetary and solar economies. - biological resources which are derived in the main from the symbiotic economy.
The size of our demand for resources is proportional to the number of people using them. In any part of the world, the population of consumers, i.e. those who live, work or have their holidays there, or who use the products of the area, is the most important factor driving its natural economy. This impact of population is studied through births, deaths, and movements of people. ______
Natural economy therefore delineates our planet's potential for human development in relation to the potential of the planetary, solar, and symbiotic economies, to sustain a dynamic human population.
It may be defined as either a global, regional or local account of natural resources in terms of the kinds, the amounts, their renewability, and the ways people use them. ______
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A global or regional account is made up from a myriad of local accounts, arising from the use of the environment by farmers, industrialists, municipal authorities and private individuals. In this sense, every village district and country has a unique natural economy, according to the way it is managed to sustain families and populations.
Natural Economy is therefore the logical subject within which to study current environmental problems from the point of view of the need to establish a practical system of environmental book-keeping and management. It also has historical dimensions, and the natural economy of past communities may be studied from the viewpoints of political history (political economy) and social history (natural economy).
In summary, the background knowledge required to obtain an understanding of the natural economy of a local area in relation to its future development, has contributions from four global systems responsible for materials and energy transformation. These systems determine its basic landscape elements. ______
The geological system involves the local past or present effects of energy of a rotating planet, with a slowly cooling molten interior, which has produced a particular terrain and soil (i.e. the local planetary economy).
Superimposed on the local effects of this geological system is the local climatic system (i.e. the local solar economy).
These two physical systems, define what kind of biological system of plants and animals and microbes will comprise the local food chains. These organisms are the outcome of biological evolution in the region (i.e. the local symbiotic economy). ______
Every environment is dominated by one or more local expressions of these three energy systems, such as erosion, siltation, earth movements, climatic desertification, and plant succession. ______
The fourth element is the human population system which is supported by the local natural economy. This is defined by the factors controlling the numbers being born, the numbers dying and the numbers of immigrants and/or emigrants. The two major biological constraints are the plane of nutrition and the levels of diseases. ______
2.4 Session 3 The subject matter of Natural Economy
Natural economy is expressed at three levels of intensity, according to the pace at which natural resources are utilised. In order of increasing intensity, these correspond to the subdivisions of ethnoecology, agrarianism and factory industrialism. ______
Within the area of ethnoecology, the lowest level of input involves the exploitation of a virtually intact symbiotic economy, by extractive cultures that make a minimum
Contents p 299 Edition June 1, 2008 impact. For example, by hunting wildlife and gathering fruits, nuts and berries from forest ecosystems. ______
Cottage industrialism and pastoralism make a more intensive use of natural resources. They are still dependent upon the productivity of complex biological communities, with the minimum management of land, and hardly any genetic selection of productive species. ______
These low input exploitive systems represent very early stages in human development. A modern feature of ethnoecology is the conservation of wildlife and heritage by urban pressure groups. This requires relatively large financial inputs to maintain features of the landscape that have scientific, cultural, spiritual and aesthetic value. Conservation was developed as a modern minority activity in response to the environmental impact of industrialism. It is now taking on a wider meaning to denote a movement and social system of ecological economics, aimed at sustaining renewable natural resources such as forests, rivers, oceans and the atmosphere. This involves special legislation, taxation, subsidies and monetary incentives, to curb commercialism. These areas denote interactions between natural economy and political economy. ______
Agrarianism covers all aspects of rural land management associated with the production of food crops, including settlement and the intake of land, water and biomass to support crop production. All features of modern agrarianism, from cereal production to forestry and fishfarming, are aspects of applied science. For example, agriculture, world wide has become industrialised through the mechanisation of manual tasks, programmed pest control, fertiliser chemistry and, currently, through genetic engineering. Factory methods of farming genetically selected botanical monocultures, and intensively housed livestock, have introduced factory-scale problems of pollution and landscape change into the countryside. ______
At all levels of rural development, economic forces determine social organisation through the operation of local differentials in the distribution of wealth, which are visible mostly through their effects on shelter and land compartmentation. For example, the kinds of homes, and the size of fields, are a direct expression of the economic segregation of families. This is clearly an interface between natural economy and political economy. ______
Fewer people are now required to grow and harvest crops, and a good general measurement of the state of development of any region or country, is the proportion of the population that gets a living from the land. Industrialisation of agriculture has occurred alongside urbanism. People have shifted from the land to seek employment in factories, where materials and energy are managed in production line systems to produce capital and consumer goods. Factory industrialism is the major force behind modern world development, and the more developed a country's natural economy, the less people are involved directly in agriculture.
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______
The gains from agrarianism and factory industrialism satisfy peoples wants for cheap foods and goods, and produce wealth for intensive leisure activities. ______
The losses are to health, landscape and climate, through the accumulation of wastes and the massive building works, required in cities to house people at home and at work. People in cities also have to have a costly infrastructure to support them, and provide links with other urban centres. This type of cost in land and energy has now been extended to support the rapidly growing tourist industry. Almost overnight, a peasant village on a remote sandy shore can be turned into a holiday metropolis. ______
The desire to counteract these physical and biological losses by applying conservation techniques, seldom produces working policies. This is because of the compartmentation of knowledge required for compromise, or zoning of land use. For example, we not only need conservation techniques, which are a synthesis of many kinds of academic and technical skills, but also have to understand how each particular tract of countryside has come to appear in its present form. This requires the knowledge and methodologies of a number of subjects which delineate our place in nature, the ways we can use its products, and whether we ought to use them. Natural Economy supplies the interdisciplinary area of analysis on a scientific database. It deals with the patterns of human behaviour necessary, to preserve the environment as a self-sustaining resource. In this respect, school project work directed towards finding out about the local environment expressed as 'landscape', encourages personal involvement with the techniques and managerial compromises necessary, to keep the environment functioning productively. ______
The social loss resulting from urbanisation is endemic poverty. At one extreme, urban economic segregation creates a landscape of 'the culture of poverty', inhabited by peoples with a low degree of social organisation. Such landscapes are poorly integrated. They lack the features that mark the cultural self-sufficiency, and the satisfactions characteristic of even the poorest of primitive, preliterate, self- sufficient peoples, with low levels of technology and resources. In these respects poverty alone does not create a culture of poverty. It is a modern phenomenon associated with areas of dense population, created by migration of country people to the cities. This is another area of interaction between natural economy and political economy requiring a combination of science, sociology and monetary economics to solve.
The relationship between natural economy and political economy is also evident in the area of ecological economics, which deals with ways of financing improvements in the environment, and providing an economic framework for protecting the environment against the damaging effects of industrialisation. ______
In summary, natural economy encompasses three kinds of human activities defined as ethnoecology (low input extractive and conservation activities), agrarianism (intensive land utilisation for settlement and production of crops), and factory
Contents p 301 Edition June 1, 2008 industrialism (associated with urbanism and the production of cheap goods and services). Agrarianism and industrialism use up scarce natural resources, and have detrimental effects on health and well-being. They also create large differentials in individual wealth, and social problems of unemployment and poverty.
Because of the serious social problems arising from technologies introduced to promote development, natural economy is closely related to political economy. One of these interactions is through ecological economics, which aims at introducing conservation values into the monetary economy. In this respect it is an expression of modern ethnoecology. ______
2.5 Session 4 The practical study of Natural Economy
People first gather information about their surroundings by becoming curious about some particular feature of their local landscape. We also relate to landscape to choose our pictures and our holidays, when our choices depend, to a large extent, on education and familiarity with actual landscapes. These self-generated interactions with landscape, which involve a combination of innate curiosity and a statement of personal values, offer an opportunity to promote environmental education through landscape analysis. The goal would be to create an understanding of how landscapes develop, according to the ways different people make use of a local environment, and the compromises they have to make in order to fit in with the demands of other users. The natural economy of a community affects the landscape according to what people produce, in relation to their culture, economics, and ethics. Landscapes therefore, reflect particular fusions of human behaviour and exploitive technologies, which vary with time and place. Landscape analysis of a local area is therefore a practical approach to its past and present natural economy. ______
At any one time the present and past natural economy of a region is written in its landscapes. Every landscape contains visible or buried records of the various ways in which people have treated the area as a resource, from the time when the first settlers arrived. 'Analytical topography', is a way of reading the landscape 'language', to reveal the underlying socio-economic forces that govern its productivity. It deals with the analysis of the diverse human behaviours that have changed any particular tract of countryside from its primeval condition. ______
The comparative study of interactions between human social systems and natural ecosystems, is defined as 'ethnoecology'. Ethnoecology defines the cultural processes which transform nature into resources. These fusions represent the basic human approaches to the problems of organising a steady supply of food and shelter, whilst conserving the resource base.
The current global emphasis on conservation is a modern aspect of ethnoecology, where the goals are the preservation of local or regional landscape elements, which reflect cultural heritage and ancient wildlife communities. Valued wildlife is, more often than not, associated with old uneconomic practices of plant and animal husbandry, which have to be subsidised to retain them in the modern economy.
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______
The natural economy of self-sufficiency makes very little impact on primeval landscapes. However, most primeval landscapes have been greatly altered by the development of interdependent human communities, characterised by the operation of market economies. This has involved clearing the natural woodlands, reclaiming marshland, fen and moor, digging mines, making canals and railways, and creating country houses and their parks.
Analytical topography is a unifying focus of a range of disciplines needed, to decipher and resolve environmental problems arising from these activities.
In outline, it is concerned with analysing the distinctive behaviours which follow the perception of a landscape feature as a resource. Perceptions of resource potential are primarily a matter of terrain, its biological systems, the demand for products, and the technology available to develop the resources. The exploitation of the resource potential is governed by complex social constraints, such as legislation, education, religion, and economic constraints, such as taxes and subsidy. These social factors are aspects of political economy, and have to be considered alongside purely scientific and technical ones of the farmer or industrialist. ______
Local economic behaviour aims at matching the supply of each limited landscape resource with demand, by the mechanism of price, irrespective of currency. In this respect, resources are very largely created by price. If a material becomes scarce then its raised price will either make extraction from poorer quality sources an economic proposition, or will stimulate the search for a substitution. Industrialism involves the discovery, invention, and production of substitutes which all involve the development of appropriate science and technology. It is the major force of world development, and has led to the global industrialisation of landscapes, and the centralisation of production systems that were formerly widespread in the rural environment.
Thus, industrialism not only changes the biological and physical elements of landscape, but also the local resources of human labour. For example, local, scattered, family production systems disappear (e.g. European village shoemakers) as a result of the invention of mass production technologies to make a cheaper product. ______
Although landscape is not a traditional educational theme, the subject of Natural Economy has, since the seventeenth century, played an important role in arousing concern about the possible irreversible impact of human development. This unique position of Natural Economy means that it is a natural, unifying focus of a whole range of disciplines. Topographical analysis of any landscape will generate many educational topics from quite a small area of the countryside. Each of these is the 'tip' of a very large 'iceberg', representing a traditional school subject. This stresses the interdisciplinary teaching potential of landscape, and highlights the central principle of teaching through landscape.
This requires the broad presentation of an actual landscape, in such a way so as to stimulate each child to build a personal body of knowledge.
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______
Natural Economy is studied historically and comparatively.
To measure the impact of commercialism on the environment requires a previously recorded base line. This base line may be ecological, i.e. the number of species in a particular habitat, or social, i.e.the numbers of babies born compared with the numbers dying, as recorded in old documents. Such studies may show that gains in crop production have resulted in a decline in wildlife diversity, and that gains in nutrition and health care have resulted in a decrease in deaths of young children. These are both historical methods of studying development, although they require different skills to carry them out.
To measure the extent of development in different places at the same time, requires the simultaneous measurement of things that are taken as indicators of development, such as cars or wages. This is the comparative method used, to compare the state of development of different countries in any particular year. ______
Comparative analytical topography reveals the development of traditional systems of rural resource management, through the analysis of vernacular landscape models. This comparative view of landscapes indicates, that ancient agrarian economies have changed through becoming linked with global resource management, particularly in relation to the bulk transportation of specialised primary products to distant markets by sea and air. ______
The impact of technology on people can also be studied historically, by reading what people had to say at the time of major technological developments in the past. It could also be of importance for local developmental decisions, to obtain first hand contemporary accounts of how people operate their current natural economy, and how their skills, interests and perceptions of the environment may be incorporated into a development plan. ______
Ideally the first contact with natural economy should be through an actual school trip, but a video, based on a particular landscape, or a written local history is probably more realistic for most schools. The minimum component for teaching is therefore a strong visual 'starter' stimulus, with detailed back-up information about the various topics which the landscape will introduce.
The aim is to instil a methodology by which the landscape may be read comprehensively. The resultant awareness of detail and the interdisciplinary confidence generated, are both necessary for compromise in any managerial conflict between environmental specialists. In a wider sense, education through landscape, rather than to landscape will also nurture an ecological conscience, and goodwill towards all the professions responsible for changing the environment. ______
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3 Structured Writing
3.1 In response to the burgeoning educational demands for open learning programmes, structured writing has emerged as a system of identifying categorising and interrelating the information required, to organise databases for learning and reference purposes. It makes learning and reference work easier and quicker. It makes the preparation of learning and reference materials easier and quicker. It allows the development of economical procedures for designing and updating learning and reference materials. This system can also be applied to the production of 'structured books' for self-instruction, or to the specification of text databases for computer-aided instruction.
3.2 Structured books are learning and reference materials in which categories of information are consistently ordered as 'blocks' on the page, and are clearly identified by marginal labels. The arrangement of information blocks is dictated, not only by logical analysis and classification of subject matter, but also by analysis of the contingencies required for successful learning and reference use. Therefore, in addition to basic content, structural books also have other features.
3.3 These additional features are:-
- introductory, overview and summary sequences.
- diagrams, charts, trees and topic webs;
- feedback questions and answers in close proximity to the material to be learned;
- self-test and review questions.
- tables of contents, alphabetical and local indexes, and glossaries with connections to related topics.
4 Empathy Material
4.1 Some topics will have an important local cultural dimension, where people have to make difficult decisions about the way the environment is used for the greatest good. It is at this point that specially prepared local 'empathy material' is used, linked to an international subject framework. In simple terms, this would be a well-written summary article, backed up with a collection of archive material e.g. scientific data, government/agency reports, and newspaper cuttings, prepared in order to provoke discussion. There could also be role-playing courseware, such as board games and adventure games. However, most games usually take up large amounts of time in relation to their curriculum objectives.
4.2 Special teaching methodologies, particularly for project work, may be introduced to intending teachers, with the aid of a special instruction manual based on a model country. This should also include example-projects. Video presentations of a suitable
Contents p 305 Edition June 1, 2008 landscape with appropriate written back-up material are useful, to introduce children to otherwise inaccessible landscapes.
5 Knowlege Organisers
5.1 For effective learning about world development, knowledge must be presented in an organised and integrated way, with questions and exercises that allow the learner to interact with basic data, with which to form a personal body of knowledge.
5.2 The organisers are:-
Software which presents information as screen pages;
Paper media, derived from the software, in the form of books or cards; books containing structured pages and cards are packed in cross-referenced and indexed boxes.
5.3 The integrators are:-
- blocks, which are one or more sentences and/or tables/diagrams about a logically coherent fragment of knowledge presented in a logical sequence;
- maps and nets, which are composed of blocks of knowledge arranged sequentially in a book or as a network diagram in cardboxes and computers;
- questions and tests.
6 Knowledge Nets
6.1 It has been found that a simple, yet effective way of structuring environmental knowledge and presenting it as a visual panorama, is a net of hexagons. Each hex is a cell or repository for an element of knowledge. The cell of knowledge may be connected to adjacent cells by directional arrows which point out the best route from a given starting point, for building up interrelated bodies of information. A knowledge net to begin a study of the natural economy of Nepal is given below. Knowledge nets for natural economy and natural economy in relation to its background knowledge are given in the next section.
6.2 Modification of Pask's CASTE approach to computer assisted instruction using knowledge maps.
6.3 A model of the structure of a body of knowledge is produced by the teacher as a knowledge map of interrelated elements (as an 'outline' 'tree', or 'net'). The specific learning aim is to fill-out the elements, so as to clarify better the interrelationships that exist between them.
6.4 The practical application commences, by presenting the student with a map or entailment structure of the subject area under study. This should start with the simplest, already fully understood elements, and have all the elements interrelated. The learner interacts with the map by choosing one of its elements and then searching
Contents p 306 Edition June 1, 2008 a specially prepared textual anthology for information. The aim of this review is to turn the map into a personal body of knowledge, which is assembled as a report.
6.5 Pask derived CASTE from a 'conversation theory' based on his own work and the work of Piaget, Vygotsky, Papert and others, in which learning is seen to result from agreements between learner and teacher on the structure of a subject. This structure can be mapped as a summary of the interrelationships between its different elements, arranged as a subset outline, linear chain, branching tree, or an interconnected net. The elements can be described with examples and non-examples.
6.6 Agreement between learner and teacher leads to understanding. This is the ability to explain a subject as an assembly of its elements, or to construct it from previously understood elements. Thus the process of learning is an interchange of information between teacher and learner, that leads to the discovery by the learner of new relationships between information.
Maps and nets are used:-
- to provide learning routes; (route maps and nets)
- to allow the learner to define (positional maps and nets) his position in relation to the knowledge;
- to direct the learner to selected (referential maps and nets) items of an integral database.
Route maps and nets delineate:-
- factual descriptions - structural descriptions - classifications - procedures - processes - concepts
6.7 The techniques of mapping and blocking lead inevitably to the creation of an enquiry mode programme, which meets all the requirements for a learner to interact with a distinct area of knowledge, starting from a general viewpoint. The heart of such a programme is an integrated software system of wordprocessor, spreadsheet and index file. This can be used to display the structured writing (nets and blocks) directly screen by screen, or produce a structured paper format in a demounted form as booklets and boxed, cross indexed cards. An example of a starter knowledge map on the problems of development in Nepal is presented in Fig 1. A more detailed account of the use of computers in association with knowledge nets, is presented in Section 7-3.
6.8 Knowledge nets are standardised to the generally accepted definitions, and the educational goals, associated with conceptualised knowledge systems. The starting
Contents p 307 Edition June 1, 2008 point is the choice of a topic or theme. The topic may deal with any of the following categories of knowledge:
- a distinct historical period, e.g "the years 1557 to 1640", which marked the transition from warfare based on bows, to weapons using gunpowder;
- an activity or process, such as "steelmaking";
- an object, such as a tree;
-an assembly of objects such as "a geographical region";
- an issue, such as "disarmament";
- a theory, such as "natural selection";
- a value system, such as "Christianity".
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Fig. 1 Introductory knowledge net on dynamics of Nepal's landscape an example of a process route map
6.9 It is a feature of topic orientated education that many different, equally valid viewpoints are brought to bear on the subject. Each viewpoint consists of a general idea, formed by selecting specific parts and characteristic features of the subject. These mental ideas are the concepts which may be set out in a 'knowledge net' to provide a general overview of the topic. Each concept is a window or door giving access from a particular viewpoint, either to other related viewpoints, or to a more detailed interpretation of the concept. The structural cells of the net provide a two- dimensional display, to be used for unifying the body of knowledge, and identifying, categorising, interrelating and displaying, the major conceptual subdivisions of information required, for understanding, learning, and reference purposes.
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Table 1 Definitions and educational activities associated with conceptualised knowledge systems
Definitions
Topic (a set of any of the following four interacting elements forming a collective entity; objects, processes, mental ideas, and issues)
These four elements are defined as follows: - object (a tangible and visible thing) - process (a series of actions or changes) - ideas (expressed as a values, attitudes or theories) - issue (a matter of dispute or discussion)
Activities involved in conceptual analysis
A topic is analysed by identifying, linking and sorting its concepts.
Concepts are linked because they are related by: - dependence (they are an essential support for something) - sizes (they represent stages in growth or development) - time (they represent an historical sequence) - associations (one thing usually accompanies another) - routes (they are on the same pathway to a goal) - consequences (they are the result or effect of some previous occurrence) - conversions (they represent changes in form, character or function)
Concepts are sorted or grouped by: - discrimination (singled out because of a special characteristic) - matching (resemblance, correspondence or equality) - grouping (things considered as a unit because of common characteristics - positioning in sequences (numerical, alphabetical or temporal)
Table 2 Types of knowledge net.
System net: Represents a set of viewpoints arising from questions about the components of a system.
Structure net: Represents the parts of things which have physical or identifiable boundaries and are intended to show only where things are and what they look like.
Procedure net: Represents a set of steps that a person performs to obtain a specified outcome, which includes decisions that have to be made. A procedure may be distinguished from a
Contents p 310 Edition June 1, 2008 process in that procedures enable learners to solve problems, produce products or take actions and/or decisions.
Process net: Represents a structure changing through time for some purpose such as the operation of a machine, weather cycles, the circulation of the blood, germination of a seed, a cake baking in an oven.
Classification net: Represents the result of procedures, where a group of objects are sorted into classes or categories by the use of one or more of the following sorting factors: discrimination; matching; grouping; sequencing.
Idea net: Represents an idea that can be distinguished by name, definition, examples and non- examples, so that the idea can be generalised and used to discriminate it from other ideas.
Issue net: Represents a matter of dispute or discussion by giving routes of the major arguments.
6.10 The Cardiff 'knowledge net' is a page, or computer screen, set out with an array of 33 standard hexagons, each of which may contain a symbolic representation or a brief word description of the information behind the viewpoint it represents. Interrelationships and/or dependencies are indicated by arrow links between hexagons. The links serve to alert the learner to the pattern of his learning, preparing him to take in specific kinds of information, and present alternative branch points in the learning pathway. The connections are made using standard rules of sorting and linking as outlined in Table 1. Each hexagon may be given a reference number as an aid to quick retrieval of further information. The different kinds of net are listed in Table 2. This arrangement enables the learner to get a broad view of the subject, by browsing through the hexagons before delving deeper into the cells that are of particular interest.
7 Information Technology
7.1 Similar techniques to those used to produce structured books, can be used to organise a database for computer enhanced learning. Indeed a computer database is virtually essential to make a structured book, using desk-top publishing software to produce it.
7.2 The computer database of Natural Economy is composed of separable labelled blocks of information, each layered in increasing detail, together with their inter- connections. This affords a flexibility in using only those parts of the system that are required for a particular purpose. Working with a computer database is preferable to a book on natural economy, where the contents of the book would, of necessity, be arranged in an arbitrary way, as in most technical/scientific textbooks and manuals. For example, the classroom objectives in Appendix 2 are suitable information blocks for a computer database, and have actually been printed out as a report from an Apple Macintosh hypercard stack.
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7.3 A flexible block-identified database may be arranged in many different ways. In particular, the same blocks, at different levels of detail, may be used for;
- initial learning for the naive student. - initial learning for the sophisticated student . - relearning or review. - reference use.
7.4 Databases
For the production of interactive computer programmes in Natural Economy. four types of multitasking software 'toolkits' are used upon which to mount items of knowledge from the database as follows:
7.5 A multi-tasking toolkit -
In its most basic form this has the following four elements:-
- a wordprocessor for words and graphics. - a spreadsheet for numerical data. - a filing system for every item of data. - a communications set-up for modems and cables.
7.6 A catalogue structured for constructive retrieval-
This is software which consists of four basic elements:-
- a knowledge system comprising a knowledge map; - an introductory guide, and feedback questionnaire; - a set of tools for retrieving and restructuring the selected information; - a reporting system for making printed reports or on screen dynamic presentations.
7.7 Hyperbook software.
This allows the learner to read, search and edit source material that has been put onto a computer disk. It allows the development of active learning, in combination with the best aspects of book-based work and information technology.
7.8 Hypercard software.
This is a card index analogue, where blocks of knowledge as words, numbers or graphics are mounted on screen 'cards'. Links are then made between cards to establish story lines, with menus for self-directed branching, and self-assessment feedback.
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7.9 'News agency' software.
This allows the users of personal computers to interact with current news items on world development ,which emanate from various environmental agencies.
8 Learning With Hypermedia
8.1 Recent theoretical considerations of the learning process have brought a shift in educational technology, from a view of the learner as someone who has to be passively taught according to fixed goals. According to the newer viewpoint, the learner is seen as a socially responsible being who takes action. In an environment dominated by a systematic 'machine- orientated' approach, the 'system' may take over producing a dislike of education, where education is 'done' to individuals and they must fit in or get out.
8.2 Where this reaction has resulted in academic failure, quite often a more open, computer-assisted approach, may fire the imagination of individuals who wish to escape from the 'cling wrap' teaching system in which learner determined goals are minimal.
8.3 Computers are particularly valuable classroom tools for open learning, because they are particularly good at:-
- carrying out rapid and accurate calculations; - processing text, diagrams and pictures; - graphing and charting numberical relationships - retrieving data; - turning lists into hierarchical knowledge structures. - assembling dynamic system models
8.4 To make a learning situation in which the data and information is structured to be interrelated, the computer is used simply as a means of offering the learner choices of different ways of looking at a large resource collection of datafiles. In particular, the programme is constructed to provide the learner with a range of viewpoints into documents, maps, pictures and statistics. By incorporating suitable tools into the cataloguing system, learners are not only given the power of rapid selection, but also the capability of selecting items, or parts of items, and linking them as a personal statement which can be printed out. Personal statements automatically become part of the database. Through interacting with such a structured access retrieval system, the computer plays a key role in the creation of a personal body of knowledge, which is available to teachers and other learners. In this way the learner has an input into the instruction system.
8.5 Computers programmed to operate in this open-learning mode have been shown to be particularly effective with those who have failed to cope with a more rigorous feedback training approach, characteristic of 'Skinnerian' enquiry mode programmes.
6.3 Databases which allow the necessary freedom of pace, choice of subject matter and organisation of individual study routes, have from the outset, to be carefully selected and catalogued for creative retrieval. This means not only providing a
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suitable basic knowledge system that can support a wide range of likely points of view of learners, but also incorporate appropriate user-friendly tools to gain access to datafiles and make personal data sets and reports. A diagram of the arrangement of databases structured and catalogued for creative retrieval is given in Fig2.
Fig 2. A database structured and catalogued for creative retrieval
8.7 In sequence, the learner starts with the knowledge map which outlines the contents of the database and the broad questions to which it can provide answers. The learner's choice of approach is sharpened up by an interactive study guide, which may have a built-in feedback questionnaire to help the learner to choose an appropriate point of view towards the database. The three elements of 'knowledge map', 'guide', and 'questionnaire', together make up the knowledge system for the database.
8.8 The datafiles are a collection of documents, maps, pictures, numerical data and other types of resource material such as videos and sound. The datafiles are entered or catalogued in such a way as to make them accessible to various tools for interrelating them according to personal viewpoints. The integral reporting system should allow, not only print out, but also a dynamic screen presentation (or lecture).
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8.9 The very sequence of passing from the knowledge map, to guide, through datafiles to make a report, is an intrinsic learning situation, in which appropriate strategies are selected in order to achieve personal goals. Learners can judge when they have achieved these goals that they have set for themselves, aided by the built-in guidance of the author, who chose the datafiles and set out the knowledge system.
8.10 A particularly useful auto-instructional programme for Natural Economy is a computer-based enquiry mode programme (EMP). The procedure to be adopted for creating an EMP, involves a synthesis of Hodgson's 'structural communication' and Horn's 'structural mapping'.
8.11 An EMP operates within the following model of learning (Fig.3) and is outlined in Fig.4. The learner is perceived as composed of four principal sub-systems:
Fig.3 The relationship between the information input and response output with feedback in an enquiry mode programme.
- receptors, with which a problem situation or incoming information is perceived and selected for interpretation or action;
- memory, in which knowledge gained from prior learning is kept in an organised manner. The learner recalls necessary information from this store, in order to make sense of new incoming information and to store anything new that appears to be of relevance or of further use;
- processor, with which the learner analyses incoming information, structures new relationships between the new and prior information, and selects topics that are of interest, thereby creating a demand for more specialised information;
- effectors, with which the learner gathers more information, and communicates the results of the memory recall and information gathering that has gone on as a personal body of knowledge.
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8.12 An enquiry mode programme proceeds in four stages.
i The learner selects an area of knowledge presented in the form of a general overview called the 'starter guide'.
ii The starter guide may be a written text or a short audiovisual presentation, specially prepared to meet the objective. This information may be augmented by memories of knowledge gained from prior learning, to make sense of the new incoming information.
iii In working through the information, the learner analyses incoming information and structures relationships between new and prior information.
Fig. 4 The enquiry mode programme
iv the learner interacts at a personal level with the starter guide, by choosing a particular topic for further enquiry. This involves using an indexed data file. The special file is accessed through a subject list and a 'starter statement' for each of the major lines of enquiry that the starter guide promotes, and also contains cross- referenced raw data in the form of documents and tables, dealing with relevant facts, theories, feelings and experiences, presented in a concise form. The data file is organised to supply all the information necessary for the learner to develop concepts and address issues, arising from the knowledge presented in the starter guide. Items considered to be relevant to these objectives are selected by the learner, arranged as a structured body of knowledge, and presented as a report.
8.13 The aims in assembling this appropriate jigsaw of information are:-
- to promote general ideas about something, by mentally combining all knowledge about its specific parts and characteristic features (i.e. to build concepts);
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- to bring out matters in dispute (i.e. to explore issues), this requires the structuring of elements according to their dimensions (i.e. organisational, managerial, technological, financial and personnel), and the different personal viewpoints.
Both aspects require making decisions about the relative importance of various elements and their dependencies.
9 Hypermedia
9.1 EMP's may be based on paper filing systems, but hypermedia software tools allow teachers to assemble their own programmes customised for their learners. 'Hypercard' software, produced as analogues of reference cards (Apple Macintosh), readily enables the learner to enter datafiles which have been pre-packed with appropriate interactive 'on-screen' links according to the concept or issue selected.
9.2 The final report can be self-assessed simply by comparison with a coded exemplar. However, hypermedia systems may be developed to take on the role of the problem-organising and problem solving roles of the teacher, with programmes that interrogate the user for relevant information, giving instructions for the items to be selected and structured correctly. Since the hypercard system operates on a basic 'card index analogue' it is possible to 'demount' the system for use as interactive 'shoebox' cards, thus allowing learners to use it who have no access to computers. Software translation links are available to transfer the EMP completely or in parts to PCs.
10 IT Methodology
10.1 The following methodological sequence has been agreed with panels of teachers as the basis for delineating the natural economy of a locality, country or region.
First, make a teaching framework in paper media, using the concept of a knowledge net to set out the viewpoints and to show the major links between them.
Second, decide how to hold the classroom information i.e. as a computer database, a set of filing cards, as original data, or copies of original data.
Third, select the classroom information as blocks of text, numbers, or pictures from primary sources or good secondary reviews.
Fourth, classify the knowledge blocks into the broad primary divisions of the teaching framework.
Fifth, structure the knowledge blocks to make appropriate classroom courseware for delivery e.g. as a computer database, a computer programme, broadsheets, or a card indexed 'shoebox file'.
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10.2 Basically, to prepare courseware the knowledge blocks are structured by establishing links between the viewpoints, and making cross- references to similarly organised bodies of knowledge about other related topics. Each distinct viewpoint would be a tip of an 'iceberg' of knowledge, and all viewpoints could eventually be fitted into a common jigsaw. This jigsaw could be presented to pupils by either paper media or a computer screen.
10.3 Because of the following advantages of computers in education, and the fact that they are rapidly gaining ground in schools, even in the developing world, it was decided to assemble the knowledge base for use with personal computers. It could then be offered to teachers as a portable disk, with the potential for making paper media from a central desk-top publishing unit for use in schools without classroom computers.
11 Personal Computers
11.1 Hardly any fact exists in a vacuum and it is psychologically difficult for people to consider any bit of information entirely on its own. People are always searching for relevant supplementary knowledge. The trouble with environmental information is, if you find a supplementary source, the chances are that it won't have the additional facts you require. You need to branch to other collections, because knowledge about the environment very often consists of threads emanating in many directions from a single fact. At the end of each thread is another fact, that itself has additional threads running in yet other directions, and so on.
11.2 As these knowledge webs or nets grow, whether they contain threads of personal or business information, it becomes increasingly difficult to locate a particular item. As the number of information cross-references becomes larger, we eventually need a "guide to the guides", and become thwarted in our search because of intervening information levels. Each information level we are forced to transcend in search of a fact, lessens the desire to perform the search in an inverse square proportion. If a related fact is two levels away, we are one fourth as likely to make the effort to track it down, and for three levels its one ninth as likely.
11.3 Environmental information is particularly difficult to track down. Not only is it housed within multidisciplinary compartments, but the different organisations that collect it often appear to gather the same information. Usually, 'the same information' turns out to be half the story. Only computers can help with the task of gathering, sorting and passing on environmental data in comprehensive, user-directed systems. Future integrated rural development is unthinkable without computers at all operational levels, from the gathering of facts, through input of data, to the effective dissemination of information.
12 Computers And Education
12.1 The microcomputer will be a key to all future developments in environmental education. Computers enable learners to interact with large interdisciplinary data bases, that are required to gain an understanding of the multidimensional view of local and global environmental problems. PCs also offer desk-top publishing systems for centralising the production of paper media courseware, customised to the local
Contents p 318 Edition June 1, 2008 situation. They also provide economies in storing information and transporting it between learning centres.
12.2 There are seven main advantages of using computers to teach Natural Economy.
1 Mechanics of operating a computer demand:-
- a high level of concentrated involvement which supplies motivation and maintains attention.
- involvement of learner with programme.
2 Computers can process inputs of learner.
3 Computers can take on complex calculations and data transformation, which because they are time consuming, may stand in the way of learning.
4 Computers can separate knowledge into manageable parts and unify disparate items of knowledge.
5 Computers can provide opportunities for assisting development from concrete to abstract thinking.
6 Computers encourage development of ancillary skills such as self-expression, economy in communication, precis, logical thought and users become aware of the limits of computers.
7 Computers
Computers provide a facility to teachers and learners for producing custom-made paper learning materials and reports through desk-top publishing. But, perhaps more importantly they provide a wide range of oportunities as classroom tools, some of which are outlined in the following recommendations.
Teachers should integrate software programmes with their lessons, and should be encouraged to write programmes, or set their own software parameters on commercial software, such as data bases, spreadsheets and text analysers, to handle their own data.
Teachers should use computers to encourage thinking rather than the accumulation of facts.
Teachers should remove barriers to learning computer languages.
Teachers should create a social dimension for the computer learning environment.
Teachers should encourage the use of computers as social tools.
Computers should not be used to present information and carry out tasks that are more simply, or directly done using other media.
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12.3 In the last decade the commercial world has shifted from corporate computers batch-processing information, to personal computers for user-processing of information for meeting individual needs. This change is also occurring within the environmental agencies, where the day of large printouts from the corporate computer department are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
12.4 This change has come about, first, because computers have created a demand for instantaneous access to information and, second, because each individual has an idiosyncratic need to follow a personal track through numerous parts of his organisational world. These developments in microcomputers have brought many environmental managers closer to the means of obtaining information. There is still much conflict of opinion as to the efficiency of personal computers for handling large databanks consisting of many small items of information. They have undoubtedly made managers increasingly specific in their demands for individually, or small group-produced information on particular topics, and less inclined to accept information based on corporate judgement of what is required.
12.5 Creating a database entails placing information in the memory of a computer, and maintaining it in such a way that it is useful for many purposes. With your own PC you can maintain a sophisticated database of information that is particularly useful to you, even if the corporate computer department doesn't have time to think about your particular applications of knowledge. A very important advantage of having a PC arises, because people respond personally to interrelated facts, and personal computer software encourages the creation of new personal bodies of knowledge, even if this only means a different way of viewing existing data. The problem is to pass this knowledge to others. Increasingly, the primary concern in many organisations is the transmission of personalised knowledge, in files, batches or stacks, between computers, each individual taking or adding to the data according to the task in hand, or the particular viewpoint. This may be described as a free-file, mobile database.
13 Data Storage
13.1 A computer programme that saves files to a disk is an information handler. The simplest types of PC information stores are therefore the documents created with a word processing programme, and the tables of numbers put into the columns and rows of a spreadsheet. Wordprocessor and spreadsheet programmes are also tools for turning the words they contain, and the ideas their arrays of data generate, into something more tangible for printing, or for communicating over the telephone. For example, a spreadsheet programme, in addition to offering a very large matrix for storing, calculating, and presenting figures, may just as likely be used as a transitional information tool, transforming existing figures into individual presentation graphics or extrapolated forecasts. Even a drawing programme is an information handler. Any picture saved on disk, whether created with the programme or captured by way of a digitiser, is information.
13.2 It is important to realise that very few saved documents exist in their private vacuums. More often a document is only one piece of information within a larger context. A letter produced on a PC, for instance may contain detailed information about a project, cut and pasted, by means of software, from a technical report. Part of
Contents p 320 Edition June 1, 2008 the letter such as the addressee's name, address and greeting may be merged from a special information file; another part may contain an excerpt from a costings spread sheet. Invisible, often idiosyncratic, coloured yarns stretch from file to file, and can only be followed rapidly, and creatively, with a personal computer.
14 Information Categories
14.1 There are three main categories of information, which are related to the purpose for which the information is utilised.
14.2 Strategic information relates to long-term planning and is therefore of most interest to top management. This is likely to include plans, summaries, projections and forecasts. Most information stems from events and sources whose data is not amenable to computer processing. It is unlikely that an environmental database would include much of relevance in this category as raw data. Up to date summary documents and selected news items are more likely to be demanded on very broad topics of current, general importance. Strategic information is best handled as a series of mobile free-files.
14.3 Tactical information is of use in short-term management and the execution of plans. It is of interest at departmental level and generally based on data arising from current activities. There is thus an obvious need for a means of rapidly processing this data. It is also probable that some tactical information stems directly from external sources, with little or no need for processing, apart from filing it as a simple table or document.
14.4 Operational information applies to the short-term running of a department or section. Operational information is such that it must generally be derived quickly from current activity. It is usually of direct interest to fewer people than is tactical information but is more specific to those persons. This implies that the content of operational information must be closely geared to the special current needs of its recipients, when dealing with the situation that engendered the information. The PC is particularly valuable in the production of regular progress reports and on-demand reports, which can be handled completely by the manager concerned, from the abstraction of data, to printing the final version. For these reasons PCs are also invaluable in the management of small offices for payrolls, forms and accounting.
15 Features of Databases
15.1 In order to be efficient a database must have the following characteristics.
- its information must be non-redundant.
- it must be programme independent and data independent.
- its data must be usable by all the programmes available within the organisation, and other organisations that it communicates with.
- it must include all the necessary structural interrelations of data.
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- it must have a common approach to the retrieval, insertion and amendment of data.
15.2 Redundancy is the duplication of data in the computer's or its network's memory. The three main dangers of redundancy are; the probability of contradiction between the values of data items in different files; the waste of storage space; the problems of updating identical items so that the master files are all equally valid.
15.3 Data independence means that the data and the programmes are mutually independent. That is to say the data can be moved and restructured, without the need to make alterations to the programmes.
15.4 Programme usage means that the database needs to be usable, not only in all existing applications, but also in all foreseeable applications.
15.5 Data interrelationships are necessary so that various applications can use data in different ways.
15.6 A common approach to methodology is necessary in the interests of understanding, to simplify the control of the database, and to facilitate the database administrator's work.
16 Database Software
16.1 For decades, commercial database software has been the cornerstone of information management on large computers. This has now been adapted for use with personal computers, and database software for PCs is now available to meet every kind of need. Within the personal computer category there are three broad types of database management: text management, file management and relational database management.
16.2 Text managers retrieve and group information from documents, which have been produced, either directly from the keyboard, or automatically by an electronic scanner. All word processor software contains a 'find' option, which can be used to go to any word or group of words specified by the searcher. The relevant block of information thus identified can be copied and shifted to a report.
16.3 This find capability may be extended to include the ability to retrieve text by search, concordance, browsers and hypertext systems;
- search systems are tools designed for the rapid extraction of documents or part-documents, given a search specification. They tend to be used by journalists, and are frequently called upon to carry out only one or two searches per session, usually printing the results for later perusal.
- concordances are also used for looking up partial documents. However, instead of searching the text every time, they create a complete index to every single word in the text. This makes them very fast but makes complex searching (e.g. for phrases) difficult, if not impossible. They also require
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massive amounts of storage - the index being substantially larger than the original text.
- browsers may have simple search facilities but are primarily concerned with the automatic, direct reading of text, emulating the familiar paper book. Except for limited searching, these programmes are generally only useful for reading texts, which must be frequently updated, and which are therefore particularly suited to computerisation.
- hypertext systems seek to go beyond the inherent linearity of conventional books, by allowing the user to tie various documents or part-documents together in complex, generally hierarchical ways. A sophisticated cross- reference structure is therefore hard-wired into the system. These programmes are generally used for creating fixed indexes into large textural databases. A recent development is the hyperbook, which allows the researcher to investigate large source texts, such as those of the encyclopaedia variety, classical literature and planning reports, which have been compressed into the memory of a PC.
17 File Managers
17.1 File management software in its simplest form is used for recording collections of isolated facts. The file part of its name does not refer to the kinds of files the programmes generated. Rather the file is like a finite collection of information, usually replicating a drawer full of filled-out forms. Each form it contains is a fact or a collection of closely related facts. It is a tightly knit block of information.
17.2 For example, a vital file of every personal database consists of a collection of names, addresses, and telephone numbers for business contacts. The database is created with an on-screen form to be filled out each time you add a new contact to the file. The form probably has blanks for the person's name, title, company, street, town, post code the phone number, with, perhaps, a space for additional notes.
17.3 Two important roles of file management software are: to offer you ways of sorting the forms so that you can 'thumb' through them in any order you see fit; and to allow searches to be made for any element on the form. Thus, a diary can become a database, where every entry on every day, made with a portable electronic note book, can be perused, sorted, extracted and inserted into special progress reports, so that the organisation is able to keep track of progress in the field.
17.4 The ideal type of file management software allows you to design and create the form yourself, according to the information that is important to you and the way you want to use it.
17.5 With these information handling tools you should be able to have the file management programme, print out a report that lists information in a form-file of all contacts you selected with your own search criteria. Good file management software allows you to use multiple search criteria, with which you could find all elements of a certain kind that are also characterised by a second and third kind of element.
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17.6 File management can involve the establishment of hierarchical and network databases. A hierarchical structured database is a top-down or branching tree arrangement of files. In a network database there is more direct connection between data items at the same level, or skipped levels, than with hierarchical databases.
18 Relational Databases
18.1 A more sophisticated type of database manager, developed from the file manager is called a 'relational' database, because it makes links between individual document files and lists of information. Mathematically a relational database can be regarded as consisting of a number of two-dimensional arrays of data items, otherwise known as flat files.
18.2 If your name and address database also has a blank space for a consecutive serial number for each form you filled out, a relational database programme will let you use that number to make a link with another database, and merge information from it automatically. A file consisting of order forms for goods could be linked through its customer serial number to the customer name and address file. As soon as the serial number is typed on the order form, the programme would retrieve the name and address and insert it into a blank space on the form. Despite these lateral links, the relational database is still a form or card index analogue, with the possibilities for forming numerous cross references from each 'card's-worth' of information.
18.3 Relational data bases are important in the generation of new, previously unforeseen relationships between information. For example, if police records, listing some of the characteristics of criminals, are compared with medical records of the same people, it might be found that all shoplifters are short-sighted !
18.4 Most people would find needs for a file manager to handle their text and a numerical database. In this respect, integrated PC programmes are now available, such as 'Microsoft Works' and 'Pipedream', 'Eight in One', which combine a simple file manager, in the same programme as a wordprocessor, a spreadsheet and a communications package, all of which can be opened on the screen at the same time.
18.5 Data presentation also involves using software for wordprocessing, desktop publishing, and file reporting (to merge selected information from spreadsheets, relational databases and file managers), to produce information in paper media of various degrees of design and sophistication. It is also possible to utilise the same information to provide interactive teaching and training programmes, with on-screen text and graphics using the so-called hypermedia software (Fig. 5). Programmes can integrate the database with the selection of audiovisual sequences from tape/slide systems and videoplayers.
19 The User Environment
19.1 People who want to use computers vary enormously in their backgrounds and in what they want their computers to do for them. From this viewpoint, all machines will allow the user to handle data and present it in basically the same ways. Differences, and difficulties encountered by the user, lie entirely in what is called the
Contents p 324 Edition June 1, 2008 user environment. The user environment is built up around the design of the computer and the symbolic paradigm that the manufacturer chooses, to place between the operator and the raw programming language. In this respect, the current combination of machines and software available commercially, consists of a few very good products, several middling ones, and some which are quite dire. To a large extent this difference is reflected in the price.
19.2 It is all too easy to put information into a computer, and good software abounds. With regard to transfer of data between different kinds of computers, the so-called hardware incompatibility problem, no longer exists, in that all of the commonly used PCs (e.g. IBM clones, BBC and Macintosh) can now transfer data between each other using modems and 'link-leads', based on special translation software. However, although the handling of raw data poses no difficulties, problems do arise in getting information in and out of the system, 'painlessly' and in a usable form.
Fig.5 Relationship between input and output software in the user environment.
19.3 Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of user environment exemplified by Apple on the one hand, and IBM on the other. Apple have put their efforts into providing a simulation of the screen as a "desk top", where 'off-the-shelf programmes', and the files they produce, are represented pictorially, to be opened and moved about like everyday objects in the real world. The mouse and its screen pointer, with an easy-on-the-eye VDU, are an integral part of this world. The Apple Macintosh has been designed to use commercial software packages all built to this common user interface. This machine is not very useful to someone who wishes to write their own programmes in conventional computer languages. Apart from typing in information and the occasional letter code short-cut, the Mac key board is a secondary feature. However, the latest Macintosh invention of 'Hypertalk' software allows someone with no previous training in computing to rapidly develop skills to create and programme a relational database for himself or his organisation, using the Macintosh iconised conventions.
19.4 The 'icon- or object- driven Apple system may be contrasted with the IBM world which is keyboard driven using letter codes, and designed for the professional programmer. It is interesting that computer manufacturers that copied the IBM approach, are now developing special icon-driven Macintosh look-alike programmes,
Contents p 325 Edition June 1, 2008 to appeal to the general user. These suffer from the problems of all two-in-one systems that make sacrifices on specification in both directions.
19.5 With regard to the computer interface required by people who have no knowledge about computers, but who wish to develop and use a personal database to gain, interpret, and transmit knowledge, the Mac is better than any other machine for two reasons. Apple invented the user-friendly medium, and consequently has a substantial lead over rivals, and the Macintosh is designed with a built in graphics interface and across-the-board compatibility. In desk-top publishing, the Mac is still well ahead of the field in terms of the breadth of its programmes and their general ability to talk to each other. These advantages have come into their own in publishing, particularly in the layout of broadsheets, bulletins and booklets. The arrival of revolutionary Apple software, such as Hypercard, which allows the novice to rapidly create a relational database on a card index analogue, is a demonstration that the machine remains far ahead of its competitors in the creative field. Its easy user interface and outstanding networking capability also make the Macintosh a machine which can be installed with little difficulty, and assimilated into the office environment in a fraction of the time of computers in the IBM/DOS world.
20 Electronic Libraries
20.1 'Consumermatics' is the first body of knowledge to be integrated at the outset with schools' computer software for its study. The educational resources are packaged as an electronic library for individualised learning.
20.2 In a conventional library, as the number of information cross-references becomes larger, we eventually need a "guide to the guides", and become thwarted in our search because of intervening information levels.
Fig 6 Electronic office for assembling electronic information packages
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20.3 Only computers functioning as an 'electronic library' can cope with the task of gathering, sorting, and transmitting data in comprehensive, fast, user-directed systems. A personal computer with modern hypermedia software can be used to assemble and maintain a huge library of words, pictures and sounds which allows the user to respond personally to interrelated facts, and can be augmented with locally relevant information. A PC loaded in this way (Fig 6) functions as an electronic library and actually encourages a user to create a new personal body of knowledge, based on screen clicks, automatically keeping track of all threads and branches.
21 Interactive reporting
21.1 Because of its cross -curricular nature, consumermatics is best taught using self- assembly software tool kits designed for teaching and pupil-reporting. The package consists of two kinds of computer files:- datafiles and executable files. These files are used to make conceptalised local information clusters (CLICS) that define the challenges of world development. The terminology and relationship between datafiles and executable files is shown below (Fig 7)
Fig 7 Relationship between datafiles and executable files
- Executable files, commonly described as 'programmes' or 'applications', are designated as 'processors' or 'hypermedia'.
- Processors are designed for individual jobs such as wordprocessing, painting or number handling. In a multitasking package they are combined so that documents may be created, calculations carried out, graphs, tables and charts produced and databases assembled, all within the same programme.
- Hypermedia programmes are designed as tool kits for the assembly of datafiles, that have been created with processors to make information packages that can be used in a highly individual fashion to extract a personal body of knowledge. The paper equivalents are filing systems, based on cards or loose-leaf binders and book indexing/abstracting systems where the
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individual items may be rearranged in novel sequences to suit the needs of the learner.
21.2 Particular sequences of information may be fixed to make the equivalent of a lecture, slide show or training programme. These are described as 'run time' versions of the hypermedia toolkit used to create them. The learner interacts through screen menus with pre-selected sequences of text, pictures and sounds. Such personal reports can be used by others as a library resource for individualised learning.
22 Toolkits
- Multitasking Processors
Contains a user-friendly wordprocessor, spreadsheet, database and communications facility all in one programme. Information may be passed between all four functions, to produce printed reports with tables and graphs and pie charts.
- Hypermedia Filers
A loose-leaf folder of words and pictures. It can be augmented and customised with additional pictures and text. Music and digitised sounds may be activated by buttons that can be placed anywhere on the screen page.
A document mode hypermedia programme which allows the interactive structuring of complex documents and reports. Picture menus can be activated by placing buttons on any part of the picture, with links to any part of the document.
A database for making forms and questionaires which can be filled in on screen with local environmental information such as weather, traffic surveys, economic data, historical data and population figures. There is full sorting and selection of records, and ability to calculate a wide range of statistics and present information graphically.
- Text Retrievers
Hyperbook' (IBM) and Voyager (Macintosh) provide the text resources for natural economy. Book anthologies are available of the works of Charles Darwin, John Ruskin, Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and David Owen. Darwin set the scene for the scientific management of biological resources. Ruskin drew attention to the aesthetic and moral principles underlying our conservation of heritage and wildlife. Malthus laid the foundations for the modern science of demography and stimulated Darwin to formulate his theory of natural selection. Adam Smith set the scene for the logical study of economics, and Robert Owen, one of the first industrial entrpreneurs, was the first to advocate social reform as a vital component to integrate industrialism with social well-being. Each electronic text comes with a booklet which explains why it was produced, with suggestions as to how it can be used.
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These are 'books on a disc' which allow the frequency listing of every work, and the construction of personal indexes based on anything a user wishes to search for. Selected items of text can be retrieved, sent to a special file, and incorporated into reports/ essays. For those who wish to create their own Hyperbooks from collections of personal reprints, cuttings, essays and classheets there is an encoder programme to do this. For example, a do-it- yourself encoder kit for Mathus' Essays on Population', would provide a learning situation, and a practical end product, consisting of an almost bottomless font of ideas and facts about human population dynamics and its social expressions. As a paper book Malthus is unreadable; as a hyperbook Malthus becomes a valuable, user-friendly, cross-curricular resource.
23 Global Information Networks
23.1 The focus for information about national conservation policies is the first United Kingdom Biodiversity Action Plan. This represents the British Government's commitment to the Convention on Biological Diversity, signed by over 150 Heads of State or Governments in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. It makes special references to the need to develop local Agenda 21 initiatives involving a 'citizen's environment network'. Maesgwyn is one such local network, with facilities to make connections via the National Museum of Wales with Europe (Schools Olympus Broadcasting Association; "SOBA"), and world wide links ('APC' nodes & 'Internet").
23.2 The focus for information on global efforts to chart the biosphere, is the group of natural sciences departments of the National Museum of Wales. For public education about local biodiversity and its conservation, the Museum's 'environment of Wales' galleries are an interactive simulation of the origins of the country's land forms and their biodiversity.
23.3 The focus for information on environmental management is the Countryside Council for Wales, and its data links with the national UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee.
23.4 The focus for global communication is the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). APC is a worldwide partnership of member networks dedicated to providing low-cost and advanced computer communications services.
The APC member nodes are marked on Fig 8 which is a representation of global computer communications available through APC. The large area in outline is the Internet backbone, providing communications between thousands of academic and commercial computers. APC nodes are linked to and make use of the Internet wherever this is practical and available, both for the fast cheap communications it provides, and for the vast information resources available on the thousands of connected systems.
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Fig 8 Maps of nodes of the Association for Progressive Communications
24 Dataflow
24.1 The conventional organisational view of a database as a dynamic entity, is in the context of a distributed data processing system with a very large memory, fast interaction times, and a very large number of users, many of whom would wish to access the system at the same time.
24.2 A distributed data processing system has many interconnected points, at which processing power and storage capacity are available. These points may on occasions act autonomously, and at other times co-operate in handling a common problem. The main purpose of distributed processing, is to give the end users of computing facilities the control over, and responsibility for, their own data. The points can be connected together in a variety of configurations which fall into two approaches hierarchical, and lateral.
24.3 The design of any database is centred on answers to the following seven questions, each of which poses a set of subsidiary operational questions.
What kinds of information are to be handled ?
Is the information provisional ?
Where does it come from ?
Who needs it and how quickly ?
How much will be public ?
What will it be used for ?
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How will it be transmitted ?
24.4 An idea of the complexity of the formats of sources and outputs for an average environmentalist's corporate database, is shown in Fig. 9, which will involve the day to day use of at least five kinds of software. The creation and support of a network of environmentalists and their organisations, has to take account of this complexity. This not only raises questions as to the kinds of software to be used. A similar large set of options will arise with respect to the other primary questions about the uses of the system. Within this complexity however, one simplification is that most problems of rural development require text analysis, and document handling, rather than 'number-crunching'.
Fig. 9. What kinds of information are to be handled ?
24.5 Depending on how the data is to be transmitted, i.e. by telephone modem/floppy disk from another computer, or by typescript or halftone photograph arriving by post; questions arise as to the most efficient means (hardware and personnel) of transcribing and mounting the data in the computer. If the information is provisional, then some means will have to be established to update it regularly. This question is related to where it comes from, which also brings up the logistics of collecting it regularly from various sources. For some areas of information, this problem might be covered by publicly available viewdata. Viewdata is of growing importance to individual PC users, in that it can be accessed from large commercial database (e.g. British Telecom), consisting of text and numbers, via a telephone line. Users obtain their requirements interactively. Each page received is charged for, and in addition, the user pays for the telephone line usage. Providers of information have to pay for storage, and hope to make more from the users than they are charged rent for the memory.
24.6 The most important questions with regard to the formats used for storage and access, are connected with who will use the information and what they will use it for. These questions will also govern the means used to transmit the data, which is likely
Contents p 331 Edition June 1, 2008 to be a combination of paper, post, and electronic media. If information is delivered, or taken out by telephone line, the rate at which bits are transmitted may be critical.
24.7 Finally, there is the choice of hardware. If there is already, as is likely for most organisations, a wide range of PCs in place, the existing variety of hardware will have to be considered with respect to the translation software that is available, for transferring data between different kinds of computers and programmes.
25 Hierarchical Systems
25.1 These have several levels, the most powerful of which consists of one or more mainframe computers forming the central complex of the hierarchy (Fig.10). This complex is capable of handling local batch processing, remote job entry, time sharing and the needs of the lower levels. It is likely that the central complex will be large, expensive and inflexible.
Fig. 10 Links in a four tier hierarchical database, for three levels of users, for two organisations.
25.2 The second level usually comprises a powerful minicomputer acting as a satellite to the mainframe. This must be capable of administering a network protocol, so that data and messages can be passed through it between the lower and higher levels. This minicomputer must also be able to handle local batchwork, interactive terminals, and possibly communicate with other minicomputers.
25.3 The third level consists of intelligent terminals dedicated to particular tasks. These are capable of controlling a number of keyboards and VDUs, and of communicating with the second level minicomputers.
25.4 At the lowest level of the hierarchy are terminals that have no intelligence, and so act merely as the means of accepting input and displaying output.
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26 Lateral Systems
26.1 These are similar to hierarchical systems, except for the omission of the mainframe. The minicomputers in a lateral system are autonomous, but are capable of communicating with one another. This intercommunication must be flexible, in order that various arrangements can be set up. In some situations the minicomputers cooperate in order to create a more powerful processing system, in others the communication is merely the interchange of messages or data.
26.2 It is also possible to have stand-alone distributed processing, in that the minicomputers are substantially autonomous with only occasional connection to other computers. This may occur when it is necessary to transfer fairly large amounts of data to and from the minicomputers. The difference between a mini and a microcomputer in this latter kind of arrangement is a matter of memory, the size of which determines the speed of operations, and the amount of data that can be handled and stored. There are of course, great differences in the costs between minis and micros.
26.3 In practice, with special interfaces, PCs can interact directly with a mainframe and/or its satellite. They can also form the basis for a local area network, particularly when the memory of one of them is amplified, which then becomes a main server for satellites. A local area PC network is based on the principle, that several users share the facilities available in one organisation, which provides them with two-way access via special cable or phone links. In a large PC network, for instance, they may have the common use of word processors, printers, microcomputers, databases and storage media.
27 The Enquiry-mode Learning Programe (EMP)
27.1 Introduction.
An enquiry mode programme ( EMP) is a self-motivated learning situation for assembling a 'jigsaw' of knowledge in response to a set of 'What', 'Where' and 'How' questions about a specified subject or topic. The aim is to provide a navigation system, coupled with a set of computer datafiles for the learner to build a personal body of knowledge. This might lead from a specific starter stimulus to an understanding of a relatively narrow area of information, or the path chosen might pass to a number of general principles. The general learning model of an EMP has been presented above.
27.2 To allow this individualised approach, information is structured in various ways. For example, definite connections can be established between levels, from "the specific to the general", in anticipation of the need for pathways between them. A generalisation from a specific question could lead the learner back to another specific item in the starter environment, which might not have been seen as a starter stimulus on the first approach (Fig. 11).
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Fig. 11. Three learning routes in an EMP.
Fig. 12. The 'special-to -general' structure of knowledge .
27.3 The Cardiff EMP is structured on microcomputers as a series of screen sequences. Each 'screensworth' of information (text, diagram or animation) is equivalent to a 'card' in a filing system. It presents a concise block of information that leads to at least one another block. EMPs are easily developed using an Apple Macintosh microcomputer using 'Hypercard' and software, which enables the necessary information to be presented on the screen as sequences of 'cards'.
27.4 Within the computer, cards are assembled in the form of stacks, or runs, each incorporating connections with other items of ancillary information, and where appropriate, to items of multimedia back up. The stacks can be printed and used as a paper medium.
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27.5 A learner can either proceed in a linear pathway from the special to the general level of knowledge, making connections with other types of media along the way, or move along optional lateral pathways ( Figs 12 to 14).
Fig. 13 An EMP constructed on a the Hypercard record-card analogue
27.6 References to other items of knowledge and ancillary learning situations such as tests, worksheets, databases and graphics, are also contained on appropriate 'cards'. 'Mouse links' can be made by the learner to all items required for the total learning environment, according to the learners inclinations to pursue a particular path.
27.7 Cards can be used to manage the use of other stacks and other media. The idea is to arrange the information in the PC and its related backup material, so as to anticipate a wide range of individual responses to the starter stimulus.
Fig.14. Links between levels of knowledge within a hypercard stack.
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27.8 The creation of EMPs revolves around a Database Coordinator (DC), a Database Producer (DP),and Compilers, who actually assemble the EMPs derived from the database. All members of the team should have experience in handling and presenting material on cross-curricular themes (Fig. 15).
27.9 The area of knowledge, or topic, comprising a set of interrelated viewpoints, is represented by an array or net. In general, an EMP is a computer managed learning procedure, where one viewpoint leads to another. It applies a standard graphical network to diagrams, charts and trees, to provide an ideational scaffold for the holistic presentation of the knowledge (Table 3).
27.10 The learner is given a knowledge net, which sets out the viewpoints and their relationships diagrammatically, and is left to interact with the knowledge pack. He/she would be expected to select knowledge to answer a question about the relationship of industry to environment, and structure it to produce a report. This report would then be checked with a model report produced by the teacher. According to any omissions, or wrong sequences, there would be feedback to produce a correct answer. The overall procedure is set out in Fig. 16
Fig 15 The multimedia curriculum development unit and it's relationships with syllabus, teachers and the classroom deliverables.
.
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Fig. 16 A computer based learning model with an integral assessment procedure.
Stage 1
The learner is presented with a visual or mental stimulus, representing an aspect of a large body of knowledge. For example, the body of knowledge representing the relationship of industry to environment (a curriculum objective) could be represented by a visit to a factory or by pictures taken of various factory sites. The teacher might have chosen the knowledge relevant to obtain an understanding of 'industrial ecology', and arranged it in the form of a set of distinct viewpoints and assembled it on grouped, linked 'cards'.
Stage 2
The learner interacts at a personal level by concentrating on a particular question, and its viewpoints within the knowledge net for further enquiry. This choice could lead either to another net which expands the knowledge, or a system chart
Stage 3
The system chart is a pictorial isotype summary of a viewpoint, showing its various components and their relationships using standard symbolic language. The learner is asked to answer questions based upon the content of the chart. This information may be augmented by memories of knowledge gained from prior learning, to make sense of new information in the chart. By studying the chart, the learner analyses its content and structures relationships between new and prior information.
Stage 4
To obtain more details about any viewpoint, the learner uses an indexed data file called a stack, accessed directly from a particular hexagon or from a system chart.There is one stack for each concept represented in the starter chart.
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Each stack consists of a set of cards. A card holds a distinct block of information (words/ a table/ a chart/ a picture) and the stack is organised to supply all the knowledge necessary for the learner to develop concepts, address issues, learn skills, and carry out assignments relevant to gaining a deeper understanding of the component of the system selected from the system chart.
Cards are cross-referenced to other cards in the stack, to other stacks, or to primary data. Primary data is in the form of documents and tables dealing with relevant facts, theories, feelings and experiences, presented in a concise form.
Stage 5
Some of the cards in each stack are question cards, which are designed to motivate the learner to select cards from the stack in order to provide an answer. These cards are selected by browsing through the stack, or by following a specific pathway of cross- referenced cards. Knowledge on the cards selected for the answer is then presented as a report. The report is a structured body of knowledge in the form of a symbolic diagram, or concept map, which show the relationships between the chosen information blocks as perceived by the learner. This report is assembled on the computer and then printed.
The aim in assembling this report, which is really a personal jigsaw of information, is to encourage the learner to make decisions about the relative importance of various elements and their dependencies.
The cognitive activities involved are :-
- to list the blocks of information that are relevant to the answer;
- to structure the blocks of information in terms of the ways they associate, how dependent or independent they are on other blocks, how they combine on one scale to produce more complex notions on a larger scale, how they interact together and how they form significant patterns;
- to promote general ideas about something by mentally combining all knowledge about its specific parts and characteristic features (i.e. to build concepts);
- to bring out matters in dispute (i.e. to explore issues); this requires the structuring of elements according to their dimensions (i.e.organisational, managerial, technological, financial and personal), and the different personal viewpoints.
Stage 6
The feedback aspect of the learning process is a comparison of the learners array with that of the teacher, with appropriate comments being triggered from the cards selected by the learner, and the way in which the learner structures them. These stages are summarised diagrammatically in Fig. 17.
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Fig. 17. Summary of the stages in an EMP.
The knowledge net/system chart/stack system can take on the role of the problem- organising and problem solving roles of the teacher, with programmes that interrogate the user for relevant information, to be selected and structured correctly. Since the software card system operates on a filing card analogue it is possible to 'demount' the system for use as interactive 'shoebox' cards, thus allowing the operator of a central desk-top publishing unit to create a paper-medium learning environment for those with no direct access to a computer.
28 Frames v Tabulated Contents
28.1 Natural Economy has been presented as a model of human development in the form of a progression of figures, that may be described as 'learning frames'. Each frame is an arrangement of key concepts of human social organisation as a ‘map’ or ‘field of action’. It has been explained that this conceptual system offers advantages in presenting cross- curricular knowledge about world development as a self-contained structured whole. Together, they make a knowledge navigation system that can be used by a learner, to place a particular topic in a broad context of other topics to which is related. Research into the way learners perceive cartographic maps as a system of communication, indicate that children cannot orientate themselves spatially within an areal unit until they are 13 or
Contents p 339 Edition June 1, 2008 older. On the other hand the ability to assemble picture jigsaws is evident at a pre-school level. This suggests opportunities to stimulate conceptual learning about world development at an earlier age, by assembling concepts identified with clear pictographic descriptors.
28.2 Tabulation is the usual method of presenting a cross-curricular theme. A table of contents approach is a simplification which reduces the number of variables. It does this by confining the learner to compartments. In contrast, a conceptual array addresses the need to develop a capacity to handle effectively a large number of variables.
28.3 The need to make links between arrays cannot really be satisfied using printed pages to carry the narrative, and at the same time offer branch points from particular elements of an array to elements in other arrays. Computers are able to overcome this limitation. They allow the teacher and user to make personal links between items of data and information, irrespective of their initial packing order.
28.4 A computer scaffold has been designed for the study of Natural Economy based on screen arrays of hexagons. The user moves from hex to hex according to a chosen learning path. These paths may be confined to one array, or may branch to others using hypertext hard links.
28.5 Arrays and their connections make a three dimensional 'honeycomb' which may be used in several ways; to provide learning routes; to allow the learner to define his position in relation to the knowledge; to direct the learner to selected items in an integral database; and to provide a feedback assessment loop. The integral database may be in the memory of the computer, such as word processor files and spreadsheets, or outside; i.e. library references and video tapes (Fig 18).
28.6 This three-dimensional concept of flexible, user-determined linear or lateral connections, is the basis for mounting Natural Economy on commercial software shells, to give an interactive, open-ended user environment. Each array, or net, is the front end, or menu, to access the data and information, offering doors and windows to encourage further study. The data cells are openings, allowing the learner to move to another array, or to detailed data and information about the element described in the hex. The learning process is greatly enhanced if the cells are delineated by icons or 'isotypes', representing the character of the information/data element.
28.7 A hexagon array is a very effective standardised menu format for encouraging a user/screen interaction with an information handling system. Each array is also a fixed graphical summary, delineating the major components of a concept or process. Therefore the arrays also present easily learned visual models of world development, by providing a print-out pattern of the major variables and the relationships between them.
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Fig 18 Diagram of an ideological scaffold based on interconnected arrays of data cells. (The numbers represent a hypothetical pathway of a learner who is establishing a personal body of knowledge from eleven arrays, with cross references to items of an integral database: the blackened cells represent selected components of each array which the learner has deemed to be significant to the line of investigation he has chosen to follow)
28.8 The data and information behind the arrays are selected secondary paper sources consisting of books, journals, reports, booklets and broadsheets, which, wherever possible, have been converted to computer files and linked to the arrays as hypermedia. The arrays and supporting media are bound together with proven commercial software shells, to make a self-sufficient integrated learning environment.
29 Historical Modelling Of The Principles Of Cosumerism
29.1 Keys to Kingsley: An Interactive Computer Museum Of Charles Kingsley And His World
Why Charles Kingsley?
From being a 12 year old schoolboy who experienced violent social unrest first-hand in the Bristol riots of 1831, until his death in 1875, Charles Kingsley was deepy involved with the ferment of Victorian social reform. One way or another, between the 30's and the 70's, for better or worse, he became involved with all the influential figures of the time, representing Royalty,the aristocracy, business, and science. We can enter this world through his novels, sermons and letters, and cross-reference to the lives of his friends and enemies. We can also 'view' Kinglsey from the writings of his contemporaries, and study the events, and 'visit' the places, which moulded his thoughts about families and environment.
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Apart from offering a personalised view of an important period which witnessed the dawn of industrialised world development, Kingsley's writings ring-true today because he was a social reformer who viewed society as a system driven by the interacting processes which integrate 'community and production'. He was a polymath with a wide ranging grasp of the connections between industrial development, social well-being, and environmental well-being (Fig 19).
Fig 19 The Kingslian System for social action to cure the ills of society
Unfortunately his efforts, together with those of some of his contemporaries, notably John Ruskin, to encourage the growth of an embryonic generalist education system, were swamped by the national priority for the training of specialists to exploit an Empire. In this context, Kingsley offers an educational model for modern times, where we require an holistic view of society and environment to absorb the educational implications of sustainable development.
The period of Kingsley's life was a triumph of British invention and applied science, which brought about vast changes in the appearance of the British countryside. In the main, these changes were results of applied science, first to the allow mass transport of people, and then to promote the spread of new ideas through personal communication. It is convenient to define this period of rapid socio-environmental change from the opening of the first public railway line in 1825 to the first experiments in wireless in 1897. People born in the first decade of the 19th century would have experienced the benefits of mass production of goods and services in the 'age of steam', and from the launch of the penny post in 1840 would have also received overnight news about people and events. They might have used the first public telephone exchange in 1878, and seen the first motor cars in the 1880s.
The notion of conserving living resources, from rare species to valued landscapes, means managing their use so that vital stocks of plants, and animals are maintained
Contents p 342 Edition June 1, 2008 for the benefit of succeeding generations. But progress in educating for sustainable development has been lamentably slow, largely because it has been seen as peripheral, and sometimes as a hindrance, to humankind's continuing quest for social and economic welfare.
From the building of the first coal-powered factories and mines it was clear that unchecked industrial enterprise is incompatible with nature. Linnaeus, for example, on his Royal fact finding tour of Sweden's natural resources in the late 18th century, reported on the poisonous fumes from copper smelters which had destroyed vegetation down-wind of the factories. However, it was not until the middle of the next century that commentators began to agitate for something to be done about the environmental impact of a rapidly developing industrial society. John Ruskin, for example, railed against the ugly impact of tourism on Europe's mountain landscapes. This was exacerbated by the pollution from holiday resorts, which even then had begun to defile clear mountain streams. Charles Kingsley summarised his two- pronged attack on the socio-environmental effects of industrialism in a sermon preached in 1870 when he spoke of 'human soot' as a by-product of competitive investment in mass-production.
"Capital is accumulated more rapidly by wasting a certain amount of human life, human health, human intellect, human morals, by producing and throwing away a regular percentage of human soot-of that thinking and acting dirt which lies about, and, alas ! breeds and perpetuates itself in foul alleys and low public-houses, and all and any of the dark places of the earth.
But as in the case of the manufacturers, the Nemesis comes swift and sure. As the foul vapours of the mine and manufactory destroy vegetation and injure health, so does the Nemesis fall on the world of man-so does that human soot, those human poison gases, infect the whole society which has allowed them to fester under its feet. Sad; but not hopeless. Dark; but not without a gleam of light on the horizon.
Kingsley was also prophetic in his vision of more enlightened times when society would demand that the countryside and human lives wasted by industrial development should be cleaned-up.
"I can yet conceive a time when, by improved chemical science, every foul vapour which now escapes from the chimney of a manufactory, polluting the air, destroying the vegetation, shall be seized, utilised, converted into some profitable substance, till the Black Country shall be black no longer, and the streams once more run crystal clear, the trees be once more luxuriant, and the desert which man has created in his haste and greed, shall, in literal fact, once more blossom as the rose.
And just so can I conceive a time when, by a higher civilisation, founded on political economy, more truly scientific, because more truly according to the will of God, our human refuse shall be utilised like our material refuse, when man as man, even down to the weakest
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and most ignorant, shall be found to be (as he really is) so valuable that it will be worth while to preserve his health, to the level of his capabilities, to save him alive, body, intellect, and character, at any cost; because men will see that a man is, after all, the most precious and useful thing in the earth, and that no cost spent on the development of human beings can possibly be thrown away".
These growing conflicts between economic development and quality of environment took more than a century to come to a head in the Rio Environment Summit. This assembly of world leaders in 1992 highlighted a global imperative to promote inter- disciplinary systems thinking, and encourage communities to express their concerns about quality of life in local environmental action plans. In the context of modern environmentalism therefore, the world of Charles Kingsley is an exemplar for constructing appropriate holistic knowledge maps about the connections between the technical, biological and spiritual components of sustainable development. He was one of the first people to offer an overview of world development that took account of applied science, its detrimental social and environmental impacts, and the need to consider the spiritual dimensions of 'place' and 'change'. His novels are imaginative and popular interpretations of his ideas presented on various stages, some of which were contemporary, and other were set in more exotic places and distant times. His messages were the same: to urge government to action, and to calm social strife by through the 'eternal goodness' of religion.
To make a learning situation out of a dynamic social system, the data and information has to be structured, to be interrelated according to logical connections between concepts and specific examples of concepts. This produces a knowledge map suitable for computer assisted learning. The computer is used simply as a tool which allows a learner to follow personal choices, from a variety of ways of looking at a large collection of datafiles (Appendix 1). In particular, the programme is constructed to provide the learner with a range of viewpoints into documents, maps, pictures and statistics. Kinglsey's world faced the same problems as our own, but it was simpler in terms of the number of people and organisations involved. Keys to Kingsley's life is therefore a 'museum' in a computer, to open doors for inter-disciplinary systems, thinking about the sustainable use of natural resources in the modern world.
29.2 "Let us work for the Noble": Biological resources and sustainable development in ancient Egypt
The civilisation of ancient Egypt stands unique in the body of world history. It was created by people who harnessed the natural resources of the Nile valley to channel its dependable flows of materials and energy into a stable agrarian society. This society flourished mainly through seasonal systems of husbandry and village processing which underpinned the wayward lives of its dynastic rulers.
History is dominated by slender evidence that fuels our fascination for noble families, their intrigues, and conquests. Museums celebrate the lives of the Egyptian pharaohs by promoting their monumental and artistic creations. However, these are but social transformations of the ephemeral, year by year produce of village fields. For Egypt, more than for any other civilization, we can redress the balance between dynastic and social history by drawing upon an abundance of material evidence about the lives of
Contents p 344 Edition June 1, 2008 the common people, and how they processed the fruits of their labour. This is the subject matter of natural economy, an area of interdisciplinary knowledge about the sytems by which people manage local natural resources for goods and trade. It deals with dynamic processes by which a society rationalises its dependence on natural resources and invents technologies and institutions for their sustained utilisation and marketing.
The Museum of Ancient Agriculture in Cairo has an unrivalled collection of organic objects representing the biological resource base of rural life of pharaonic times. These artifacts, be it a sack of grain, a dried fish, a plate of croissants, a side of beef, a role of air-thin linen, all tell stories about the domestication of the unique solar economy of the River Nile. Artifacts of this kind are not common outside Egypt, partly because of their fragility, but also because the early collectors concentrated on objects in stone and metal. They are vivid illustrations that Egypt was created and has flourished through the efforts of its farmers from ancient times. Their technological inventions, agricultural improvements, and physical energy have affected Egypt's economy, prosperity and mode of life. Yet many of the basic techniques for the sustained cropping of arid lands invented 6,000 years ago remain virtually unchanged.
Conceptual Plan
The following conceptual plan follows the convention that many socioecological processes which involve flows of materials, energy, goods, people, and information can be best dealt with using a systems format.
Most of our evidence about the socioeconomic organisation of the ancient Egyptians derives from their elaborate religious ceremonies depicted in temple and tomb. Unfortunately, the key to the complex religious symbolism resided with the living priesthood. Having lost this oral tradition we are left with an Egyptian world view expressed in unintelligible symbols. Our quest for understanding must inevitably begin with the most consistent symbolisms which are those of the procession, the festival, and the rites of temple and funeral. A central feature of these ceremonies throughout the long period of Egyptian history is the offering of village produce to the gods. The ancient Egyptians not only depicted the offerings but also detailed the various processes by which they were produced. A widely accepted interpretation of this convention was put succinctly by Alexandre Moret in his analysis of the symbolism of wall decorations:
'All around, servants bring provisions of food, clothing and the necessary furniture; the making and origin of each offering is used as the theme for the decoration. Thus, to explain the offering of a leg of beef, they show animals feeding in the pasture, the mounting of the cow, the birth of the calf and scenes of agricultural life up to the slaughter of the animal; the offering of bread made it necessary to have scenes of tilling, harvesting and baking; the offering of wine was the excuse to show vineyards and grape-gathering; offerings of furred and feathered game and of fish made it necessary to show scenes of hunting in the desert and of fishing by line or net. Each of the objects of the funeary furniture - shrine, coffin, bed, vessels, clothing, arms or jewels - gave rise to descriptions of the methods of manufacture of these objects; thus, we
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can see, plying their trades, carpenters, foundry-men, armourers, weavers and jewellers. Even the purchase of provisions in the market and the drawing up of household accounts are used as decorative subjects. The soul and the body of the deceased relived perpetually the sculpted scenes: the act depicted became a reality, each picture of a being or an object recaptured, for a moment, its ka and came to life according to the wish of the god who lived in the tomb . . .'
** Part of an inscription in the tomb of ‘Paheri’, an Egyptian Mayor of the 18th Dynasty,which describes agricultural management in the fields of his villages.This idea is presented diagrammatically in Fig 20 as a sphere of ‘worldly abundance’ linked to a sphere of ‘celestial abundance’ via a sphere of ‘offerings’ organised by palace and temple.
Fig 20 A world model of Ancient Egypt
A dynamic systems view of this model ( Fig 21) defines the flow of offerings as a channel of mediation between people and gods to realise mankind’s divine potential. The system represents a constant processing of natural resources through society to ensure life after death in an eternal agrarian paradise. This organic flow also guaranteed divine feedback to maintain an abundant natural economy in mankind's transient earthly life through the unfailing daily circuit of the sun.
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Fig 21 Human and divine flows of natural resources and spiritual 'energy' through Egyptian society
The artifacts, which for the most part come from temples or tombs, cannot be considered in isolation from this model. However, at the level of the daily lives of farmers, craftsmen and traders they may be simply taken as illustrations of the systems and processes by which biological resources enter a local natural economy. This prosaic viewpoint defines two major themes for the travelling exhibition as ‘systems for organic production’ and ‘methods of organic processing’. This mode of structuring the exhibits makes it possible to draw comparisons with other agrarian societies, both ancient and modern. The concepts representing the first level of knowledge for each of these themes are presented in Figs 22 and 23.
Fig 22 “Systems for organic production” 1st level concepts
These diagrams are only collections of concepts arranged at random and do not represent the layout of museum space. They represent first level non-structured windows into a knowledge system. The beginnings of a levels’ approach to this system is presented in Table 4 in which some of the 1st level concepts are opened up to provide a second level menu.
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In this educational model the learning experience involves moving from an object to the concept it illustrates, and then to a more detailed consideration of the object in its various temporal dimensions. The object is positioned in a plane defined by research. From this position it has a place in history, a place in a sequence of development or invention, and a role as a functional element in a system or process.
Fig 23 “Methods of organic processing” 1st level concepts
This brief discussion opens up problems of information delivery posed by the individuality of the learning path of an average museum visitor. Even where the display is structured to narrow the line of enquiry, a particular object may, independently of the curators vision, trigger a desire for more knowledge about it in any of its various dimensions. A cased object with a conventional paper information system, consisting of labels and a summary booklet, is limited in not being able to offer the necessary lateral connections. A computer managed database integrated with a conceptual knowledge system would be an obvious advantage. It could offer a relatively cheap graphic/text printout for each object as a potential takeaway, and also cope, via a gallery screen interface, with the idiosyncratic demand for information to assemble a personal body of knowledge.
Although it is important in the first instance for the exhibits to stand alone, modern computer technology can add value to an exhibition as an individualised learning experience. The aim is therefore to create two kinds of computer programmes to increase the availability of information. One of these will be a simple picture-show with options for selection of further data on one or two levels. The other will be organised around a conceptual framework to support the assembly of a personal, in depth, body of knowledge which integrates the world view of the ancient Egyptians with their natural resource base. This will be capable of taking the user from general statements to the research data that supports them. Both of these programmes will have optional links for paper print-outs via a coin/card operated mechanism.
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Table 4 Natural economy of ancient Egypt:1st and 2nd level concepts
Systems for production Methods of processing
•Calendar •Plants •Domestication Crop processing •Irrigation Medicines •Cultivation Flowers •Transport Wood crafts •Plant production Cosmetics Field Building units Grains Fibre crafts Flax Clothing Papyrus Traps/ nets/ snares Gums •Animals Fruits Footware Vegetables Butchery Palm wood Dairy products Carob beans Leather crafts •Animal production •Food processing Water Beverages Fish Cereal foods Wild fowl Bread Shellfish Honey Desert Oils Game Wines and beers Stall and yard Preserves Donkeys •Animals in religion and domestic life Beef cattle Cows Sheep Goats Domestic fowl
30 Dynamic Modelling
30.1 Any hex that has a direct connection with another can be defined dynamically, if the major factors connecting them can be expressed in mathematical terms. Software is available to allow the learner to set up a conceptual framework, in order to study the effects of changing variables on a set of interconnected concepts. Most academic disciplines are concerned with developing explanations for dynamic phenomena, and world development is made up of a multitude of processes that induce change at all levels of society. The latest software tools allow the learner to map a system as a series of interlinked boxes to make a structural diagram, which traces out the dynamic behaviour that's implied by the particular arrangement of assumputions. The software will then run the model within a selected time frame, as a changing simulation to test the assumptions. Using this user friendly simulation language assembled by dragging icons, learners can use explanations provided by others, and develop them for themselves.
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30.2 Integral Data and Information
From the computer knowledge system created around these ideological scaffolds, pathways may be selected that eventually lead to data and information.This additional material is in the form of references to conventional books and to data / information, formatted as hypermedia enquiry mode files
30.3 The following are specially prepared, book-size, electronic files containing linked blocks of numerical data, text and graphics. Essentially they are demonstrations of a selection of commercial software, to show teachers how interactive multilevel documents can be prepared in school to serve the needs of many different users. All of the demonstrations can be used by learners, to intuitively navigate large volumes of information quickly and locate exactly what they need. If required, users can update, rearrange and extend the material to build a personal body of knowledge.
30.4 Summary of Major Topics agrarianism applied environmental knowledge arts autecology biological resources biomass intake climate commensalism commercialism communication communities conservation consumerism cottage industrialism crop production cultural heritage demand distribution systems ecological economics ecological structure economic exchanges ecosystems empires energy management environment environmental concerns ethnoecology exploitation extractive cultures factory industrialism family economics finance food chains global climate goods households industrialism institutions invention land compartmentation leisure activities lunar and solar cycles markets materials management mutualism natural resource loss natural resources the animate economy ocean currents ocean tides parasitism pastoralism peoples physical resources planetary economy political economy political history population dynamics processes production systems products religion renewal cycles rural climate
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31 Windows From The Decorative Arts
31.1 Learning about the need to balance our uses of natural resources against their rates of production, requires the broadest possible curriculum, with windows to draw in teachers and learners from many disciplines. Countryside management has to deal with interlocking issues, which can only be resolved by the application of information drawn from many disciplines. There is a particular gap in the area traditionally covered by the arts and humanities, with respect to those aspects of local history that bond modern communities with their environment. These are often powerful magnets, which by attracting visitors, who see them as environmental goods, accentuate the environmental impact of local economic development. Therefore, a complete information system dealing with local environmental management, should provide access to the socio-historical heritage which gives the countryside a unique ‘sense of place’. The aim is to fill this gap by establishing an informatics model for storing and retrieving information about local socio-historical heritage, which integrates the history of people and the built environment with the local biological productivity.
31.3 The model is outlined in Fig 24. It represents basic knowledge at two levels of complexity; the inventory of major elements that go to make up a local historical heritage, and the systems which incorporate these elements to define the local social dynamics.
The elements of the inventory are defined as:-
- personages are those individuals who have made a local impact as developers or opinion makers;
- constructions are the major buildings, parks and gardens that chart the progress of human development;
- creations are the main art forms associated with the constructed elements;
- landforms define the local landscape character as a panorama expressing the main features of local development;
- substrate defines the geological formations which define the local terrain and soils;
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- species are the biological entities which are the outcome of local long-term evolution, and the domesticated plants and animals that have been imported as part of local agrarian production systems or ornamental gardens.
31.4 These elements are incorporated into systems which together define local socio- economic dynamics of place in the past and present.
31.5 The subject of Natural Economy deals with the ways in which local cultures perceive natural resouces and process them to meet a social purpose. For the most part it deals with the questions of how the resources are used, but the study of social purposes of the materials and objects produced is central, because global consumerism is now driving world development. The 'hows' and 'whys' of manufacturing and business which satisfy these demands offer many routes for the personal study of 'place'.
31.6 The investigation of the relationships between people and place can begin by asking how artifacts, such as buildings, constructed landscapes and everyday household objects relate to a place, and how specific geographical factors or human conditions affected the design and fabrication of the artifacts made and used there. Analysis of this information reveals attidues of taste, transmission of ideas, trade routes, ethnic identity, and a host of other factors, that contribute to creating a cultural profile of a specific place.
31.7 This model deals with the creation of household objects that fall into the category of 'decorative arts', because they are readily accessible and possess many layers of meaning. Investigating their social uses in the household, points of view of their design, construction, and their roles in larger technological, economic and cultural networks, opens these layers to a dynamic, multidisciplinary interpretation of the local natural economy.
31.8 Objects result from many marketplace decisions and backroom ideas which affect choice, cost, availability and marketing strategies. Therefore, properly recognised and described, objects may suggest meaningful links to broader questions or concerns about the economic system that produced them and, by reflection, the development of our modern culture. A dynamic interpretation will show that their design and availability of household objects influence social behaviour, and specific requirements for use inspire new object forms and variations. Changes in availability of natural resources and technology both impact on the shape and use of objects and routines of everyday life and culture. Also, as rituals and customs change in relation to economic development, selection of appropriate objects for drinking and dining, leisure, personal care and so forth also change. Studying the design and fabrication of a given object from different regions reveals attitudes of taste, transmission of ideas, trade routes, ethnic identity and a host of other factors, that contributed to differentiating the natural economy of a specific place at a specific time.
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Fig 24 The information model of socio-historical heritage
31.9 Finally, understanding the historical context of objects allows us to relate them to changes in production systems. Despite the similarities in processes among the various pre-industrial trades, the tools and specific skills necessary to execute them varied significantly and required substantial investment of money to aquire them and time to learn their use. To reduce costs and provide consumer choice, preindustrial makers employed production systems that relied to varying degrees on parts standardisation, specialised labour, and other trade practices. By interchanging standard parts and patterns within their workshops makers could inexpensively multiply the variety of their products. This is the practice, which became the hallmark of industrialisation.
31.10 In summary, every manufactured object can be defined within three notional planes and addressed from its 'place character', its 'time character' and its 'production system' (Fig 25).
31.11 This notional framework can be extended to provide routes for studying an object from six viewpoints: its time of manufacture; its place of manufacture; its history since manufacture; its process of manufacture; its purposes of manufacture and the resources used for its manufacure (Fig 26).
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Fig 25 Notional planes for defining a manufactured object
Fig 26 Routes for learning about a manufacture object
32 Exemplars Of Databases Structures
32.1 The 'Source to Product' Approach
In general the procedure is as follows:
- select the 'need' or 'want';
- select the product which satisfies the 'need' or 'want';
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- determine the major natural resources that are drawn upon to produce the product;
- produce a knowledge network which defines the natural economy of the product and its resource base.
- use the knowledge network to assemble a database and use it to:-
- define the production system;
- define the economics of the production system;
- determine the main limiting factors in the use of natural resources in the production system;
- model the system, from natural resources to product, as a quantified pathway, in order to predict the likely impact on the natural resources of any change in the main limiting factors.
32.2 Manufacture of clothing
This starts with the primary natural resource ecosystems which the clothing industry exploits, to satisfies our wants for garments:
- wool-bearing herbivores grazing either on semi-natural pasture derived from steppe and forest, or on grass monocultures derived from forest; - monocultures of cotton plants in semitropical forest/scrubland soils; - flax plants in temperate woodland soils; - undersea or underground oil; - wild arctic fur-bearing animals, and domesticated carnivores in industrialised production systems
32.3 The Knowledge Tree (Fig 27)
Topics are linked together according to their degree of interrelatedness. The links can be made manually, each topic being connected to others to which it is related in the mind of the author.
Hyperbook software in fact, allows the user to establish a series of interrelated binary indexes to a vast amount of text (about 400 pages on an 800 K floppy disc). The tree structure represents a personal body of knowledge created by linking the searches in hierarchies.
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Fig 27 A hypertext tree on Logotron Hyperbook software connected by a 'hard link' to another. With Longman-Logotron's Hyperbook software the links are made automatically in the sequence in which searches for key words are carried out.
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32.4 Network Journalism
The learner is presented with a set of headlines, each of which indicates a small block of information represented in integrated text or graphics. These offer a browsing environment as the 'front-end' of a major body of knowledge. The aim is to catch the attention and interest of the learner, by presenting the information in the form of items of general knowledge.
Each headline is a door to a formalised knowledge network, represented by an array of hexagons. This formal network places the isolated blocks in an interrelated knowledge system or ideological scaffold.
This is exemplified below for the 'planetary economy', one of the four major sub sections of Natural Economy.
The information blocks
ATOMIC CLOCK Radioactive atoms disintegrate, and change into atoms of another kind. They continue to disintegrate at the same rate regardless of their surroundings, so that at any time the age of a sample can be measured, by seeing how much of the original material is left.
It is assumed that when rocks are formed from the molten interior of the earth, radioactive elements are deposited in a relatively pure form. This makes an atom like uranium most useful for dating rocks. It turns into lead, but so slowly, that even after millions of years some of the original uranium can be measured and compared with the amount of lead. The more lead, the older the rock.
HEAPS OF WATER Tides are due to the water in the oceans being periodically pulled into heaps by the gravitational pull on the earth, the sun and the moon. The waters being the most easily pulled portion of the earth are consequently the parts most displaced.
The effect of this gravitational pull is to pile up the water on one side of the earth, and to produce a corresponding heap diametrically opposite. As the earth rotates, these two piles travel round the globe and so produce two tides at each place in the course of one day. The effect of the sun is less than that of the moon because, although bigger in mass it is much further way, but its influence is by no means negligible. Thus when the sun, moon and earth are roughly in the same straight line, new moon and full moon, the two pulls reinforce each other and the highest tides, called spring tides are observed. The smallest tides, or neap tides, occur, when the moon is in its first and last quarters and the combined gravitational forces are least.
Out in the mid-ocean, the water itself does not travel, but is just lifted and dropped again. Oceanic tidal waves do not carry water around the earth. But on the coast, where piles of water are lifted onto rocky shores and beaches where there is no water on one side of the wave to confine it, the water does move bodily, falling onto the
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TIDE-TIME It is impossible to calculate from first principles when the tides at any one place will occur, because as a tidal wave progresses round the globe, it soon encounters land masses which divert it. At each place, continuous observations provide a basis upon which to compile accurate tide tables so necessary for navigation.
In some cases the tidal wave is split, and travels round the land in two parts. These may arrive at a place farther on at different times, so giving rise to the phenomenon of a place having four tides or even more, daily.
A SPACE VISITOR'S VIEW A space traveller looking down on the Earth 200 million years ago, would have seen a single giant landmass. Geologists today call it Pangaea (from the Greek words for 'all earth'). The vast ocean that covered the rest of the Earth they have named Panthalassa (from the Greek words for 'all sea').
Repeated expeditions would have revealed, that the single land mass was slowly splitting up to form continents, and that these continents drifted apart.
This all happened between 180 and 200 million years ago. The first split was into two sections: Laurasia, which consisted of present-day North America, Europe and Asia; and Gondwanaland. which consisted of Africa, South America, India. Antarctica and Australia.
Our space-traveller would have seen the resulting parts-each on a giant raft-like 'plate' of rock - slowly take up their present positions. The two Americas linked. Arabia separated from Africa and became part of Asia. And India ploughed into southern Asia, producing enough pressure to throw up the giant Himalayan mountain chain.
PARTING OF THE WORLDS Every year the New World moves about 40mm (.5in) farther away from the Old - pushed apart by the widening bed of the Atlantic Ocean. A chain of underwater mountains, known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, runs down the centre of the Atlantic. Along its length, molten rock constantly wells up and cools, forming new crust and driving apart the continent-bearing plates on either side. Iceland, which sits astride the ridge, is, as a result of the movement. getting bigger every year. In a million years the Atlantic will be wider by about 40km (25 miles).
BACK TO THE MELTING POT Where one plate's edge dips below another, in what scientists call subduction zones, deep ocean trenches are formed. Among them is the lowest spot on the Earth's surface, the Marianas Trench, which drops to 10,914m (35,808ft) below sea level.
Some scientists have suggested that these trenches could be used in the future as a way of getting rid of long-lived nuclear waste. Dropped into a trench, the waste would eventually be swallowed up and its radioactive elements returned to the melting pot from which they originally came.
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LUBRICATING THE CRACKS Man may soon be able to control earthquakes-with water. Water pumped into the ground in unstable areas, accidentally or deliberately, is known to be able to trigger earthquakes. It acts by lubricating the rocks beneath, allowing them to slip more freely past each other. Geologists are working on plans to release tension in unstable zones, by pumping water into the ground deliberately, and thereby causing a series of small, controlled quakes in place of a single large one.
SWITCHING POLES The Earth's magnetic field sometimes flips, reversing polarity so that north becomes south. The change happens in a relatively short span of geological time-sometimes less than 10,000 years. 'Then the poles remain in position until the next reversal. During the changeover, The Earth's magnetic field gradually reduces in strength until it is very weak. It then re-establishes itself.
BAKING A COMPASS A compass needle that once pointed north then points south. Evidence for this switch comes from rocks. Many record the direction of the Earth's magnetism at the time they were formed, because they contain traces of iron which reacts to magnetism. For the same reason, ordinary bricks record the magnetic field prevailing at the time they were baked. The last known reversal, which took place about 30,000 years ago, was dated through the remains of a clay fireplace, built by Australian Aborigines. But the reason for the switching of the poles remains unknown.
32.5 Time-Travellers
The guidebook
HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF TENBY AND ITS VICINITY
AN ACCOUNT OF TENBY CONTAINING AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE PLACE
COMPILED FROM THE BEST AUTHORITIES
AND A DESCRIPTION OF ITS PRESENT STATE
FROM RECENT OBSERVATIONS WITH PARTICULAR NOTICE OF THE VARIOUS OBJECTS OF INTEREST IN ITS VICINITY
1818
PRINTED BY JOHN WILMOT PEMBROKE PUBLISHED BY JOHN TREBLE TENBY
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Learners are presented with historical, living or fictional people, who will guide them into the knowledge system. The characters speak either through their writings or through the author of the teaching programme, who puts words into their mouths which they would probably have said if presenting an aspect of natural economy. The following example comes from a project to introduce Welsh school- children to the natural economy of their district, based on the South West Wales holiday resort of Tenby
The scenario
Imagine that you are a visitor to the holiday resort of Tenby. Browsing through a second-hand bookshop you see an old town guide. It contains no words, only pictures, maps, diagrams, and lots of empty pages.
On touching each picture you find that the page dissolves away to allow you to enter the world of the people who made the pictures, drew the maps, and can help you make sense of the diagrams.
You have in fact been very lucky, and discovered, between the old book covers, an ultra-modern electronic time-machine. It provides you with endless opportunities to call up the voices of people from the past. These people are time-travellers who will guide you through Tenby's past and present. Their memories are part of the book's vast electronic memory, and if asked, each traveller, will convert their memories to words which will appear on the empty pages of your book.
These words will help you to imagine the world they lived in, and appreciate their personal feelings about things they saw and events they experienced.
You too will have become a time-traveller, because each person you contact will be able to send you to other people they know about who will help you in your voyage of discovery. You will be passed on from guide to guide, forwards and backwards in time, as you wish.They will also help you to organise your new knowledge in relation to your school subjects
Being a time-traveller yourself, you also have the power to add your character to the guide-book's band of travellers. You can do this by writing about your own experiences of Tenby. When you leave you must return the book to the bookshop for others to open. Your words will live on in its memory.
Actually, as yet, no such book has been found, but it is possible to provide the next best thing using the latest computer technology.
A band of Tenby time-travellers has been be created within the memory of a microcomputer from the various records they have left behind.
The pages of the book with its dissolving pictures, lists of characters and information pathways may be viewed on the television screen.
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Pages may be turned and characters chosen using simple programme commands. You can place yourself in the memory for others to find by simply typing your messages from the keyboard.
The band of time-travellers
Each traveller has agreed to act as a 'doorkeeper and guide' and stands before a distinct entry point to a knowledge system called 'natural economy'. This knowledge system unifies their individual experiences one to another, through time and space. It does this by offering 'guidelines' showing how their lives, like ours, were connected with a continuous supply of natural resources, for survival, profit and pleasure. Each traveller knows of other doorkeepers, with guidelines, at deeper levels in the knowledge system, who will help you to extend your travels, forwards and backwards in time.
FIRST LEVEL TRAVELLERS
WILLIAM WILLIAMS OF ST FLORENCE SCHOLAR AND ANTIQUARIAN (Guideline 1 Definition of natural resources AND Guideline 4 The human economy)
M A BOURNE OF TENBY social historian and author (Guideline 2 Human social organisation)
DR FREDERICK DYSTER OF TENBY marine biologist (Guideline 3 Ecosystems)
THOMAS AND JOHN WHITE OF TENBY: merchants and mayors (Guideline 5 Commercialism)
T H HUXLEY FRS OF LONDON visitor and applied biologist (Guideline 6 Ethnoecology)
WILLIAM JENKINS OF TENBY: tourist guide (Guideline 7 Cottage industrialism)
HAWKSLEY OF CALDEY: agricultural improver (Guideline 8 Agrarianism)
JOHN COLBY OF AMROTH: industrial entrepreneur (Guideline 9 Factory industrialism)
CLOUGH WILLIAMS-ELLIS OF PORTMEIRION: architect and conservation pioneer (STACK10 Conservation)
SIR WILLIAM PAXTON OF LLANARTHNEY: developer and politician (Guideline 11 Urbanism and leisure)
REV GILBERT J SMITH OF GUMFRESTON: geologist (Guideline 12 Planetary economy)
SIR THOMAS PASLEY OF MILFORD: climatologist (Guideline 13 Solar economy)
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P H GOSSE A TENBY HOLIDAYMAKER: naturalist and author (Guideline 14 the animate economy)
SIR RHYS AP THOMAS OF CAREW: courtier and landowner (Guideline 15 Political economy)
ROBERT RECORDE OF TENBY: mathematician (Guideline 16 Invention)
SECOND LEVEL TRAVELLERS
Joseph Cadwallader of Tenby: smuggler l. P. Barnaschone visitor: social historian
Cosmo Innes f.s.a. visitor: ecclesiologist
John Jones of Caldey: lighthouse-keeper
The Williams family of 'Ty Un Nos' Penrhos
Daniel Defoe visitor: author and traveller
Edward Laws of tenby: archaeologist
Miss Goode of Tenby: milliner and dressmaker
Villagers of Llangwym
Peggy Davies of Tenby 'a bathing woman'
Dr John Smith of Tenby rector of St Mary's
Margaret Mercer of Scotsborough: housewife
Inhabitants of Skomer Island
John Jones of Haverford West: batchelor of physic and Tenby bath-owner
Herberd of Carew: servant to Sir John Perrot and pirate
Wyz of Roose and Dungleddy: a Flemish adventurer
Margaret Davies' 'pembrokeshire children'
Oona of Clegyr Boia Elfyn of Foel Drygarn Gerald de Barri of Manorbier Hugh Moore of Tenby Elizabeth Owen of Henllys
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Tom Lloyd of Llanwnda Ben and Nan James of Begelly Jack Adams of West Williamston
M W Shanly of London: leisure-industrialist and 'deck-chair king'
Vitalianus Emereto of Nevern: an Irish christian
Isambard Kingdom Brunel of Bristol: transport engineer
Viscount Palmerston of London: prime minister and fortress-maker
The Inhabitants of Hoyle's Caverns, Longbury Bank
An anonomous visitor : author of 'My Summer Holiday 1863'
Robert of Kemys: son of 'Martin of the Towers' 'first' owner of Caldy Island
Brian S John's 'Pembrokeshire great-grandfathers'
great-grandfather 'railway' great-grandfather 'docker' great-grandfather 'fisherman' great-grandfather 'farm labourer' great-grandfather 'quarryman' great-grandfather 'coal-miner great-grandfather 'mill-worker' great-grandfather 'shipbuilder' great-grandfather 'brickmaker' Cadell of Narberth: eldest son of Gruffydd ap Rhys Prince of South Wales
33 A 'Samba' Learning Model
33.1 The core of the famous carnival in Rio de Janeiro is a twelve-hour-long procession of song, dance and street theatre. One troop of players after another presents its piece. Usually, the piece is a social comment dramatised through music and dance. The processions are not spontaneous. Preparing them as well as performing in them are important parts of Brazilian life. Each group prepares separately- and competitively- in its own learning environment which is called a 'samba school'. These are not schools as we know them: they are social clubs with memberships that may range from a few to many hundreds. Each club owns a building, a place for dancing and getting together. Members of a samba school go there most weekend evenings to dance, to drink, to meet their friends. As they dance everyone is learning and teaching as well as dancing. Even the stars are there to learn their difficult parts. There is a great sense of social cohesion, a sense of belonging to a group, which is part of a community of groups, and a sense of common purpose.
33.2 The samba school* represents a set of attributes that every learning environment should, and could, have. Learning is not separate from reality. The dance samba has
Contents p 364 Edition June 1, 2008 a social purpose and learning is integrated into the school for this purpose. Novice is not separated from expert, and the experts are also learning.
33.3 'The type of practical education required to commit youth to environmental action is also a 'school' for learning with a purpose. It requires an educational innovation that is sensitive to what is happening in the surrounding culture. In particular practical educational methods are required to go with the the dynamic trend of the Rio Environment Summit, and Agenda 21 which all Heads of government signed. The action plans now being prepared and implemented in each country should be taken as a medium to carry Agenda 21 methods into the community for backing action to improve the local quality of life. Because of its origins in Rio, and because the flow of ideas is not a one-way street, SAMBA is an appropriate educational metaphor, and acronym, for a movement that provides opportunities for youth to get together with others engaged in similar activities. Knowledge being learned by questioning the local environment is continuous with world culture. There is a lot to talk about and there are important things young people can do.
33.4 SCAN, which stands for 'Schools in Communities Agenda 21 Network provides the methods for schools to take up a role in the production of action plans for sustainable development and biodiversity. The UK Government's Agenda 21 action plans are a national response to the Rio Environmental Summit. They envisage that communities should establish regular quality of life surveys. These checks on the environment should be associated with a wider citizens environmental network to share ideas, concerns and initiatives, to help in the creation of local environmental management plans. The problems, issues and challenges to be tackled through the local Agenda 21 are those associated with fragile or declining features which define local character, quality of life and the roots of heritage. These include jobs, biodiversity, transport, local services, recreation, access to the countryside, historic buildings, language, reminiscences, and family/community archives.
33.5 Local Agenda 21 requires full ongoing consultation between local politicians, and their planners, with the communities they serve. This consultation must activate as many people as possible to develop their neighbourhood action plans, and communication of these plans to either the District division of their County or the Unitary Authority. No new money is forthcoming, but Downing Street expects its agencies and local government to do their bit, with local business to provide resources to help, initiate, and sustain a local community momentum.
33.6 The nation-wide system of community monitoring and networking envisaged at Rio will have to be cheap, simple, and rely on a permanent input of local resources. In other words, any costs have to be met by local people and businesses, through some kind of local 'environmental subscription', to an organisation that is permanently embedded in each community. This organisation should be equipped to undertake environmental surveillance and networking on behalf of the people, and help devise action plans to incorporate their feelings about valued local features, in order to ensure stability in the rapidly changing economic framework of the neighbourhood.
*The samba school was chosen as an educational metaphor by Seymour Papert to promote educational methods that do not need continuous support once they take root in an actively growing mind.
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33.7 In terms of their direct links with local people, and their information handling capability, schools are an obvious social focus to air environmental concerns of the families they serve. Regular quality of life surveys, and the production of management plans by adults in partnership with children, have an educational bonus by highlighting the local environment as a 'living classroom'. Youth would become directly involved with practical applications of learning, to solve the problems of their community. By making use of educational software tools for collecting and disseminating information, the fixed costs of establishing a local features-database would be small. The main limiting factors would be time-out sponsorships, to allow teachers to develop a system of surveillance and communication, in collaboration with community leaders, which is compatible with their classroom objectives. The additional costs are likely to be of the order of hundreds of pounds per year per school, and well within the fund raising capability of a partnership of teachers and the local business community, organised within an appropriate unit of local government as the focal point.
33.8 This line of argument led to a project involving the advisory service of Dyfed County Council in Wales, and schools in Pembrokeshire, piloting simple classroom methods for pupils of all ages, to probe the quality of life in their communities. The aim is to alert children to the character of their surroundings, and establish a features database that lists the good and bad things in their community.
33.9 Currently the classroom tools are being refined, and a system of networking tested, to link communities through schools, with local agenda 21 groups being established by local government at the level of the Unitary Authorities and District Councils. The aim is to produce a standard protocol for schools collect information and make their own management plan to help their community with its Local Agenda 21. The information metaphor is a transportable, up-to-date 'bulletin board' for presenting views of environment in a wide perspective e.g. 'business' to 'wildlife'.
33.10 The means to implement the strategy will be an audit of the local environment, as a living classroom, based on sets of questions which define the quality of "Our Place". Information would be gathered to meet particular subject requirements, but the information package would have to have a dual purpose, as an educational resource, and a community database, to support local actions for improvements. Local partnerships between business and community through the school are desirable, to obtain the necessary economic dimension to the action plans.
33.11 The objective is to promote interactions between schools and the community they serve, which will be critically revealing in terms of balancing local natural resources against the requirements of economic development. A central feature of the strategy is to devise a framework which will allow the local school to set up and run a community bulletin board at minimum cost, maximum educational benefits and minimum disturbance to classroom routines. The system as a whole, particularly its communications framework, should be applicable internationally. To this end the following simple school's Agenda 21 methods for backing action are being developed, to standardise the collection and of the collection and presentation of information to share between communities and countries.
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33.12 A set of schools Agenda 21 methods for backing action:-
- "Community Postcards", a collection of do-it-yourself postcards, each card consisting of an individual's message about a local environmental concern and its pictorial presentation; this will bring together views of the environment from business to wildlife in order to assemble an Agenda 21 Bulletin Board; - "Community Checkout", questionnaires which prompt local investigations into the quality of community life, and stimulate the monitoring of local wildlife; - "Community Change" guidance to help youngsters gather environmental wisdom of their neighbourhood, expressed in the cultural heritage of people and local traditions; the package encourages a 'sense of place' through linkages between 'youth' and the 'elderly' - 'Community Matters', an information package which reviews current local environmental problems, issues and challenges relevant to local businesses, youth, water, wildlife etc. which can be used as an educational resource; - "Community Microcosm", a small simple aquatic classroom ecosystem that can be used to carry out experiments on biodiversity; - "Community Links" a communication system, by FAX, E-mail, and floppy- disks through the post, for sharing words and pictures with other communities; - "Community Conservation Action Plan" a standard relational database for schools to make their own local environmental action plan to help their community improve the quality of life or biodiversity of their community.
34 Conceptualised Learning
34.1 As learning animals, we have the capacity to organise our experiences by categorising them, so that a whole fund of varied information can be subsumed under one concept that is named. In this way we can make sense of our bewildering and multifarious environment, classifying our experiences and slotting them in to our growing conceptual filing system. Computers offer a unique learning environment to help us reinforce this natural learning process. They do this by allowing learners to link and present concepts graphically and interactively, and move from a broad overview of the system to data and information about its detailed working and management.
34.2 The graphic screen interface allows users to concentrate on the understanding of key ideas about complex systems, based on the notion that each contributing discipline has certain key concepts (descriptors) which form the core of the subject ,and to which all studies are related. It is important to look further into the question of the nature of concepts and their value as the 'structural scaffold of thinking'. In particular, we need to know how we can encourage effective conceptual learning, using computer programmes as knowledge navigation systems. In particular we need to find ways of presentation, so that learners can move easily between the concepts which define the system and link them into personal bodies of knowledge.
34.3 The idea developed initially to provide a standardised on-screen two- dimensional menu for individualised learning, where the learner was offered an electronic library of computer files, that could be browsed through and abstracted. It was extended as a graphical way for the teacher to delineate study pathways between text and pictures, combined in an executable hypermedia file.
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34.4 Concepts may be studied in their own right, but usually a personal body of knowledge is produced, when a learner relates different concepts to each other which had previously been considered in isolation.
34.5 Experience has shown that an array of interlocking hexagons provides a powerful graphical way for conceptualising a learning experience. An array of hexagons allows up to seven concepts which are closely related, to be placed economically, in a cluster of adjacent hexes. Any particular cluster is an arbitrary arrangement, defining the point of view of the compiler in selecting and connecting the concepts. This viewpoint may be emphasised by using arrows, to point out logical pathways from one concept to another. Clicking on any screen hex will either present another array in which the concept clicked upon is expanded, or reveal a more detailed overview, or present specific data and information which illustrate the concept.
34.6 Constructing one's own array, and moving within and between arrays selected and positioned by someone else, are distinct learning experiences in their own right. As a basic teaching aid, the hex net provides the learner with selected, mapped, concepts, produced by a teacher for following alternative learning routes. In its present stage of development the learner can move around a collection of data and information, represented as a two- dimensional mapped array, and also move from one array to another. Each array represents one level of a multidimensional collection of data and information.
34.7 Where it is not possible for learners to have access to a computer, each array can be printed out by the teacher, to make a pack of indexed class sheets or cards for more general use as a 'shoe-box file' (Fig 28). Where cards are printed from the computer (e.g. using card metaphor hypermedia software) they are cross-referenced by incorporating a set of holes at the top for coding. The holes are used to make an edge-notched card file. The top right hand corner of each card is removed, showing which way up the cards should go. The entire pack is sorted by placing a needle through the appropriate holes for a code (taken from a coding table). This selects a card containing a particular concept. The same procedure may be used to expand a concept.
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Fig 28 Relationship between the hexagon array of concepts (descriptors) and the learning frame in a paper pack
35 Learning Frames
35.1 Eventually, the learner will move from a hex to a more detailed level of information, represented as a picture, some text, or statistical data. This can be held in a computer, either integrated with the particular hex with hypermedia 'click on' links, or as a separate text file, or picture file. In a paper set-up there would be a separate library of reprints, broadsheets or books, to provide the detailed backup to an interactive shoe-box file.
35.2 Whether working with a shoe-box file or a computer, the navigation process results in the user creating a personal body of knowledge. With a computer, the subset of data and information that has been selected and connected up, may be either held in the memory or printed as a report.
35.3 The hex arrays are called 'learning frames'. A 'learning frame' is analogous to a 'climbing frame'; moving within a 'climbing frame' stimulates neuromuscular coordination; moving within a learning frame stimulates conceptual coordination
35.4 In essence, a learning frame turns a list into a learning resource. A list is not a learning resource. Lists represent the front end, or index, for data and information, organised for reference use. Conceptual diagrams are multidimensional menus and navigation systems for accessing data and information, which, when organised with a computer programme, provides an in-depth learning experience.
35.5 One great advantage of using computers in education, is that they allow teachers and learners to construct logical filing systems. This means that that information is lodged within the architecture of the knowledge system to which it is related. The construction of this kind of filing system cum knowledge navigation system is particularly crucial to learn about industry. It meets important aims of both teaching and learning, to assemble a personal body of information, by selecting it from a very large multifaceted database. It can be argued that the lack of a broad-based, user-
Contents p 369 Edition June 1, 2008 friendly, interactive filing system has left industry on the margins of education. Within the national curriculum, manufacturing industry can only be approached from specialised viewpoints of institutionalised subjects, such as technology, history and economics, and not from its all embracing position in the mainstream of human culture.
36 Systems Thinking
36.1 The first phase in thinking about complex dynamic systems encapsulated within the concepts of 'culture' and 'industry', is by defining a vantage point, panoramic view, or outlook, consisting of a map of the most important concepts and their relationships. Using this knowledge map, a detail of current interest can be related to other information, by navigating between the concepts which define a topic, theme, or subject. If the concepts are arranged dynamically, i.e. they define a system which has a goal. A conceptual map on a computer screen encourages users to quickly reach the detail they need, and to think about the system by posing questions of the 'what happens if I do this? ' type. Computers are particularly good for making dynamic models of systems which predict the outcomes of different courses of action
36.2 Understanding our modern world inevitably involves unravelling dynamic, goal- orientated systems of one form or another. To apply systems thinking to any phenomenon, a basic understanding is obtained by first expressing some assumptions about it in the form of a map or structure summary. This diagram summarises pathways for following through the outcomes of these assumptions. Starting from this conceptual vantage point detailed models of a system can be compiled:-
- first, by constructing a boundary around a set of elements and interrelationships so that the cause of the dynamics exhibited by the system resides in the boundary ('causal models');
-second, by connecting up the elements within the boundary in such a way as to define what is causing the dynamics to occur (closed-loop models);
- third, by identifying the limiting factors, or operational levers, which will allow the investigator to 'run' the' system so as to make and test predictions about how it works (operational models);
- fourth, by defining common patterns of system behaviour over time which, for example, cause temporal phenomena, such as progressive build up, loss, and oscillation, which are common to a variety of systems (comparative models).
Together, these four ways of asking questions about how a system works, combined with the panoramic conceptual map of how the system fits into a more general body of knowledge, define 'systems thinking'.
37 Primary Menus
37.1 The advantage of presenting information through 'windows' of a computer screen, is that it gives the user a free hand to assemble a personal body of knowledge, by asking particular questions that motivate an individual enquiry. Basically, this
Contents p 370 Edition June 1, 2008 personal approach to learning involves asking six kinds of question. In Fig 29 these six questions have been arranged in hexagonal cells, which represent the primary windows to reach particular kinds of information and data. Because the questions are so basic to any form of human enquiry, they are suitable as a standard menu at any level of the education system.
Fig 29 A primary enquiry menu
37.2 Each of these questions encapsulates one or more distinct categories of concepts. These categories corresponding with the questions in Fig 1 are given in Fig 30. Putting concepts in order is the creative process by which data and information is turned into knowledge in the form of 'topics' and 'subjects'. Therefore, a mode of enquiry based on identifying concepts then arranging them to answer a question or make a statement, is a powerful learning situation. Computers are ideal tools for this activity because of their interactive graphic screen interface.
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Fig 30 Categories of concepts related to different lines of interrogation
37.3 The questions select the following categories of concept.
The 'Who' Question Selects:-
• PERSONS - such as 'Lord Nelson' in the topic 'The Battle of Trafalgar".
The 'What' Question Selects:-
• OBJECTS - such as 'an oak tree' in the topic "British Woodland" • ORGANISATIONS - e.g. social groups united and structured to a particular end, such as the management structure in the topic 'Steelmaking". • SYSTEMS - e.g. groups of interrelated elements forming a collective entity, such as 'the Periodic Table" in the topic, 'Chemistry of the Transition Elements'. • ISSUES - e.g. matters of dispute or discussion, such as "disarmament".
The 'Where' Question Selects:-
• PLACES - e.g. such as 'Merthyr Tydfil' in the topic 'The Industrial Revolution' • REGIONS - e.g. a local assembly of places.
The 'When' Question Selects:-
• PERIODS - e.g. a distinct segment of time, e.g. "the years 1557 to 1640", which marked the transition from warfare based on bows to weapons using gunpowder. • TIMES - such as a sequence of days. • EVENTS - such as the eruption of a volcano.
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The 'How Question' Selects:-
• PROCEDURE - e.g. a set of instructions or steps that a person performs to obtain a specified outcome. This includes decisions that have to be made. A procedure may be distinguished from a process in that procedures enable learners to solve problems, produce products or take actions and/or decisions. • PROCESS - e.g. a structure changing through time, either naturally, (weather cycles, the circulation of the blood, germination of a seed), or for some human purpose (the operation of a machine, a cake baking in an oven).
The 'Why' Question Selects:-
• THEORIES - such as "natural selection"; • EXPLANATIONS - e.g. the clarification of disputed terms or points. • IDEAS - such as the value system of "Christianity".
38 Secondary Menus
38.1 It is a feature of topic orientated education that many different, equally valid viewpoints are brought to bear on a subject. Each viewpoint consists of a general idea formed by selecting specific concepts, illustrated by the various parts and characteristic features of the subject. These concepts are the mental ideas which may be set out to present the topic as a series of 'learning frames', which lead the learner from a general overview to the more special parts of the topic.
38.2 In a computer learning programme these frames are the secondary menus where each concept is a window or door giving access from a particular viewpoint, either to other related viewpoints in another learning frame, or to a more detailed interpretation of the concept. The structural cells of the frame provide a two-dimensional display. This can be used for unifying the body of knowledge, and for identifying, categorising, interrelating and displaying the major conceptual subdivisions of information required, for understanding, learning, and reference purposes.
38.3 Based on this conceptualised approach, every topic may be defined as a set of any of the following four interrelated concept categories which forms a collective entity;
- structures, tangible or imagined; - actions or changes; - values, attitudes or theories; - matters of dispute or discussion.
39 Learning By Conceptual Analysis
39.1 The end-point of a computer learning programme is the self-assembly of a personal body of knowledge from the data and information that the user, working through one or more learning frames, has selectively displayed. Building a personal body of knowledge proceeds by identifying, linking and sorting concepts to fit a particular mental picture.
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39.2 Concepts are linked because they are related by:
- dependence (they are an essential support for something) - sizes (they represent stages in growth or development) - time (they represent an historical sequence) - associations (one thing usually accompanies another) - routes (they are on the same pathway to a goal) - consequences (they are the result or effect of some previous occurrence) - conversions (they represent changes in form, character or function)
39.3 Concepts are sorted or grouped by: - discrimination (singled out because of a special characteristic) - matching (resemblance, correspondence or equality) - grouping (things considered as a unit because of common characteristics - positioning in sequences (numerical, alphabetical or temporal)
40 Summary Of Types Of Learning Frame.
40.1 A learning frame is an arrangement of concepts presented symbolically on screen or a paper print-out. It can be produced by the teacher to guide the learner into deeper levels of information. A learning frame may be produced, as a report, by a learner to sum up the body of knowledge gained.
System frame: Represents a set of viewpoints arising from questions about the components of a system.
Structure frame: Represents the parts of things which have physical or identifiable boundaries and is intended to show only where things are and what they look like.
Procedure frame: Represents a set of steps that a person performs to obtain a specified outcome. This includes decisions that have to be made.
Process frame: Represents a structure changing through time for some purpose such as the operation of a machine, weather cycles, the circulation of the blood, germination of a seed, a cake baking in an oven.
Classification frame: Represents the result of procedures where a group of objects are sorted into classes or categories by the use of one or more of the following sorting factors: discrimination; matching; grouping; sequencing.
Idea frame: Represents an idea that can be distinguished by name, definition, examples and non-examples, so that the idea can be generalised and used to discriminate the idea from other ideas.
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Issue frame: Represents a matter of dispute or discussion by giving routes of the major arguments.
40.2 Two kinds of learning frames are presented below. In Fig 31 the concepts and their relationships are presented in the form of simple icons. .
Fig 31 Learning frame for primary level education, setting out the concepts of two production systems by which natural resources are converted to consumer goods.
40.3 The learning frame in Fig 32 is an array of standard interlocking hexagons, each of which may contain a symbolic representation or a brief word description of the information behind the viewpoint it represents. Interrelationships and/or dependencies are indicated by arrow links between hexagons. The links serve to alert the learner to the pattern of his learning, preparing him to take in specific kinds of information, and present alternative branch points in the learning pathway. The connections are made using standard rules of sorting and linking as outlined in above.
41 Thinking In Terms Of Systems
41.1 Traditional teaching and training based on the linear progression of printed pages and video tape story-lines, encourages linear thinking. In particular it encourages four attitudes towards dynamic systems, be they physical, biological, or social, which influence the way we construct mental models to understand and manage them.
These attitudes are:-
1. Causality runs one way.
2 An external force or shock is always the cause of a dynamic behaviour pattern.
3 Each causal factor is assumed to exert its influence independently.
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4 Systems are studied passively in the form of expert expositions, in text books or manuals.
Fig 32 A learning frame for tertiary education setting out the topic "The life of animals"
41.2 All these thought patterns are reinforced every time a teacher 'walks' a learner through the logic of a list of assumptions. Concentrating on assumptions can impede the development of a learner's understanding of what causes systems to behave as they do. This is because we are not good at deducing the dynamics of a system from a list of assumptions about the way it works.
42 Computers And Lateral Thinking
42.1 Computers are not good at grasping assumptions, but they will always correctly trace out a dynamic behaviour pattern implied by a set of assumptions. Also, computers allow learners to 'see' the system reflected back as a working, operational picture of his/her thinking in the form of a map or mirror. Learners can make lateral operational connections between parts of the system and run the model in time. This helps show that external manipulations bring about dynamic patterns of behaviour that are latent within the relationships which define the system. Computers are able to demonstrate that external events are the precipitator, rather than the cause, of the dynamic behaviour of systems.
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42.2 Choosing to view the relationships operating within a system as the cause of the dynamic behaviour patterns it is exhibiting, will focus the learner's attention on these relationships, which are the basis for managing the system. Using computers therefore promotes the following changes to linear thought patterns.
1 Rather than considering each causal factor independently, we are able to think in terms of an interdependent web of relationships.
2 Instead of viewing a system's behaviour resulting from shocks delivered by outside forces, the behaviour can be viewed as being generated as a response by the system itself.
3 In place of one-way causal relationships, computers allow us to use circular, or closed loop, ones. A circular relationship defines any system where an action prompts a reaction within the system, to keep it moving towards its goal.
4 Systems may be studied using dynamic simulations which promote active, discovery orientated learning.
Although the above arguments stress the advantages of using computers for learning about systems, we do need an integrated mixture of linear and lateral media.
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Chapter 8
Natural Economy of Industrial Production
"An explanation should be a simple as possible, but not simpler"
Albert Einstein
1 Business: an educational resource for systems thinking
2 'Business' as a source of teaching materials
3 Business as a system for satisfying needs and wants
4 Industrialism
5 'World development' through 'industrialism'
6 The Role of Industry in The Natural Economy of Change
7 How the industrial revolution began; producers, traders and consumers
8 Political Economy: The Organisation of Society for Production
9 Interactions Between Political Economy and Natural Economy
10 Some 18th century models of Industrialism
11 Production for variety
12 Production for bulk marketing
Appendix Reflections in the Suffolk Village of Fressingfield
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1 Business: an educational resource for systems thinking
Business in Education
The long-standing neglect of industrialism in our academic educational system has fostered an antagonism to manufacturing industry, and this negative attitude has now been transferred to industrialised agriculture and food production.
This situation has been accentuated by the stress currently placed upon teaching the scientific facts about natural processes and the importance of caring for the environment. Industry still remains on the side-lines as a dark force in the national curriculum.
Marketing and industrialism are twin aspects of human development through business which, world wide, have produced our lifestyle and our landscapes. The resolution of environmental issues can only occur within a knowledge system based on these fundamental aspects of human behaviour. In this respect, industrial developments that environmentalists see as lost causes should be presented in a positive educational perspective.
This section is based on a project to develop business models in education carried in the late 1980s and early 90s by teachers and pupils in the County of Gwent aided by a sponsorship from British Steel.
Its aim is to present business, particularly when allied with industrialism, as the only means of advancing prosperity and human well-being, and to integrate business and industrialism with with environmentalism.
This requires two things:-
- the creation of a knowledge system in which our use of natural resources is seen as a result of market forces operating to supply human wants within in a framework of mass-production;
- the production of up to date information about their motivation and achievements by people in business.
Conceptual Mapping
One great advantage of using computers in education is that they allow teachers and learners to construct logical filing systems. This means that that information is lodged within the architecture of the knowledge system to which it is related. The construction of this kind of filing system cum knowledge navigation system is particularly crucial to learn about industry. It meets important aims of both teaching and learning which are to assemble a personal body of information by selecting information from a very large multifaceted database. It can be argued that the lack of a broad-based, user- friendly, interactive filing system has left industry on the margins of education. Within the national curriculum, manufacturing industry can only be approached from specialised viewpoints of institutionalised subjects, such as
Contents p 379 Edition June 1, 2008 technology, history and economics, and not from its all embracing position in the mainstream of human culture.
Systems Thinking
The first phase in thinking about complex dynamic systems encapsulated within the concepts of 'culture' and 'industry' is by defining a vantage point, panoramic view, or outlook, consisting of a map of the most important concepts and their relationships.
Using this knowledge map, a detail of current interest can be related to other information by navigating between the concepts which define a topic, theme, or subject. If the concepts are arranged dynamically, i.e. they define a system which has a goal, a conceptual map on a computer screen encourages users to quickly reach the detail they need, and to think about the system by posing questions of the 'what happens if I do this? ' type. Computers are particularly good for making dynamic models of systems which predict the outcomes of different courses of action
Understanding our modern world inevitably involves unravelling dynamic, goal-orientated systems of one form or another. To apply systems thinking to any phenomenon a basic understanding is obtained by first expressing some assumptions about it in the form of a map or structure summary. This diagram summarises pathways for following through the outcomes of these assumptions. Starting from this conceptual vantage point detailed models of a system can be compiled:-
- first, by constructing a boundary around a set of elements and interrelationships such that the cause of the dynamics exhibited by the system resides in the boundary ('causal models');
-second, by connecting up the elements within the boundary in such a way as to define what is causing the dynamics to occur (closed-loop models);
- third, by identifying the limiting factors, or operational levers, which will allow the investigator to 'run' the' system so as to make and test predictions about how it works (operational models);
- fourth, by defining common patterns of system behaviour over time which, for example, cause temporal phenomena, such as progressive build up, loss, and oscillation, which are common to a variety of systems (comparative models).
Together, these four ways of asking questions about how a system works, combined with the panoramic conceptual map of how the system fits into a more general body of knowledge, define 'systems thinking'.The most common diagramatic representation of industry depicts relationships between causes and effects by linking components of the system diagrammatically with a one-way flow of arrows. The aim is to show 'what causes what'. As a distinct type of educational model it may be described as a 'causal' model because it expresses the system in terms of a one-way causality.
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An example of this approach is given in Fig 1.
Fig 1 A causal model of industry
It summarises two distinct production systems and their goals of leather goods, and motor cars. It tells us that the resources to meet these goals are, respectively, biological and physical. The pointing hand represents the 'direction', or 'management', of the flow of resources that is necessary to produce the finished products.
To turn this one-way causal model of industry into a more realistic closed- loop systems model requires the delineation of feedback from sales of leather footware and motor cars to the demand for raw materials.
To turn it into an operation model requires the identification of the main factors which, in each case, limits the the flow of resources. For example, two of these limiting factors are, in the long-term, the total population of potential consumers, and, in the short term, the amounts of money they have to spend. It is then possible to think about what happens if the population rises or the income of consumers falls.
The two models of the leather industry and the motor car industry can then be compared in various ways. For a given change in population etc will the leather industry and the motor car industry expand or contract to the same extent?
In general the four kinds of model, 'causal', 'closed loop', 'predictive', and 'comparative' tend to be used in sequence as a learner's understanding increases. For example, as a simple pictorial model of our industrial culture, Fig 1 could be developed at the primary level. In the form of a comparison of the development of the leather and motor car industries it would be appropriate for a sixth form geography/economics project. On the other hand, a consumer model of 'leather to shoes' or 'iron ore to motor cars' is an
Contents p 381 Edition June 1, 2008 alternative to the 'sweet shop' in the corner of a primary class where youngsters first gain practical experience of economics.
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2 'Business' as a source of teaching materials
As a general cross curricular theme to be revisited
To centralise 'industry' in the curriculum it has to be integrated into those attainment targets which define human behaviour. This means that, broadly speaking, it has to be presented as an aspect of human biology. Luckily, 'human biology' as a unified theme can be teased out of the national curriculum and it is a recurring strand at all levels of attainment. This is presented in Fig 2.
Fig 2 'Human biology', a recurring theme in the national curriculum
The syllabus takes humankind as its biological exemplar and as the pupil's understanding develops the attainment targets shift their emphasis from the 'here' and 'now' of the individual to the goals of society. Industrialism, as the major system consuming natural resources to meet the goals of society, encompasses the three areas of 'our uses of land, air and water', 'our dependence on other living things', and 'looking after ourselves and others'. From this point of view the conceptual map of human biology can be rearranged, as in Fig 3, to emphasise the cross curricular theme of 'resources to goals'. Natural resources meet goals via 'uses for evolution', 'uses within our bodies', and 'uses within society'.
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Fig 3 'Resources to goals' as a cross curricular theme in human biology.
As a collection of materials to meet particular objectives in teaching the national curriculum.
For example, approaches to a database for specific materials for use in technology would be through headings such as ‘communicating ideas’, ‘handling information’, ‘modelling’, and ‘measurement and control’.
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3 Business as a system for satisfying needs and wants
Goods and services
Suppose you are rescued from the desert island by a passing ship which takes you to the nearest port. Safe at last! Or are you? How will you survive here in the port city? Your basic needs are the same as they were on the island but the opportunities for satisfying them are very different. The city has water on tap and many different kinds of food and shelter. It has much more besides - luxuries as well as necessities. To get almost anything though, you will require money (see MONEY AND ASSETS). In the city as on the island, survival requires work. In the city, though, work and survival are not connected directly. They are connected via the labour market and the food, housing and other markets. Your chances depend on how well you can operate in various markets and how well the markets operate for you.
A whole host of economic issues can be understood in part by thinking of them in these personal terms, but to understand them fully it is necessary to approach them in a more general way and to look at evidence on a regional, national or international scale. The study of economics involves three overlapping groups of issues. Taking up the theme of survival, the first group examines problems of development and underdevelopment. This group merges into a second which deals with the domestic economic issues that concern rich and poor alike. The third group deals with international economic issues.
The monetary economy- a circular system
In a market economy HOUSEHOLDS supply LABOUR to BUSINESSES via the labour market and receive wages in return. Some households also supply land and invest money. To persuade people to invest money, businesses undertake to pay it back with interest. For the use of land, they pay rent. The levels of wages, rent and interest in this simplified picture are determined by supply and demand in the labour, land and money markets. In reality GOVERNMENT, trade unions, international institutions and other bodies have a role to play in this process. Businesses use the factors of production (labour, land and capital) obtained the markets to produce products.
These are sold to households at prices determined by the interaction of supply and demand in the product markets Commodities (land, capital and products) flow clockwise round diagram, whilst the payments would flow anticlockwise .
Types of economic organisation
The description of the port city on this page indicates that it is a market economy in which the questions of what to produce, how to produce and for whom to produce are answered by individual economic agents (businesses and households) interacting through markets. In practice, market economies are also capitalist economies. Capitalism involves the private ownership of the means of production. The United States, Canada, Western European
Contents p 385 Edition June 1, 2008 countries and Japan are all predominantly capitalist. The state owns some industries in each of these countries. In the United Kingdom, for example, the railways are state owned, which means they are run, indirectly, by the government. Because of this, countries like the UK are said to be mixed economies. The revolution in Russia in 1917 ushered in a rival economic system, soviet communism, under which the state owns the means of production and the economy is planned centrally. This system has now collapsed in. eastern Europe and the states of the old Soviet Union are committed to bringing in a market economy as soon as possible.
Work
In the city, as on the island, you will need to work to survive. What sort of work is there? One way of answering this question is to divide work up according to the type of thing that is being produced. The simplest way to do this is to talk about primary, secondary and tertiary activities. Primary activity includes AGRICULTURE, MINING and ENERGY production. Secondary activity is mainly MANUFACTURING. Manufactured goods include domestic cookers (a example of a consumer good) and windscreens (a producer good, since windscreens are sold to other producers in this case car manufacturers). Tertiary activity includes retailing, banking and other SERVICES, plus TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS. Primary activity tends to decrease in importance as countries get richer.
Markets
A market is the name given to the trading arrangement for an economic good or service. Goods are physical products like cars and hot doges. Services are things like hair-cuts and bus rides. Some commodities have a fixed market place but others, like housing and labour, do not. Sellers of a good or service try to earn as much as they can but if they pitch thier price too high, buyers will go elesewhere.
Competition between sellers tends to make lthem fix their prices at about the same level. When there is just one seller in a market there is a monopoly. Monoplies can raise prices above the competitive level but if they fix them too high people will look for substitute products inseaead. Indeed nearly all prices are influenced by consumers ability to substitute one thing for another - to buy pears instead of apples, or buy a bus ride instead of taking a taxi. The number of buyers in a market is imporatnt as well. In a town dominated by one eimployer, wage rates could be fixed at a lower level than if there was competition for labour. rouighly speaking the more buyers and sellers there are the more competition there will be.
Supply and demand
The price of a commodity tends to depend on supply (the amount available in the market) and demand (the amount that consumers want to buy). The higher the price of a commodity the more of it suppliers will want to sell, so supply tends to increase as the price increases. Conversely, the higher the
Contents p 386 Edition June 1, 2008 price the less of the commodity consumers will want to buy, so demand tends to decrease as the price increases.
If the price is too high, supply will exceed demand. As a result, some of the commodity will remain unsold. There will be a surplus or excess supply.
If the price is too low, demand will exceed supply. As a result, there will be shortages and queues.
If the price is pitched at the right level, 'market clearing' will occur (no excess demand and no excess supply).
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4 Industrialism
'The curriculum area, 'uses of natural resources within society', defines the cultural goals of the production systems of industrialism. Industrialism is a way of using resources to meet goals of supplying goods to people of the right design and the right price. It applies mass production and automation to increase the speed of production and reduce the costs. It is now a global force for producing goods in the manufacturing sector, the farming sector, the forestry sector, the fisheries sector, and the service sector, throughout the world
Industrial production is governed by 'consumer systems' which determine what goods will sell, and and at what price. Goods are sold to households at prices determined by the interaction of supply and demand in the market place.
Through the market place, consumer systems connect with 'economic systems'. In an economic system households supply labour to businesses via the labour market and receive wages in return. Some households also supply land and invest money. To persuade people to invest money, businesses undertake to pay it back with interest. For the use of land, they pay rent. The levels of wages, rent and interest in this simplified picture are determined by supply and demand in the labour, land, and money markets.
In reality government, trade unions, international institutions and other bodies have a role to play in this process (political economy).
Economic systems answer the questions of what to produce, how to produce, and for whom to produce. The answers are provided by individual economic agents (businesses and households) interacting through markets. In practice, market economies are also capitalist economies. Capitalism involves the private ownership of the means of production.
Economic systems are also linked with the 'care systems' of society by which we look after ourselves and others. These are funded out of the market economy. In addition, some of the care systems, for example, education and environmental protection, now have a direct influence on consumer systems.
This closed loop commercial model of the systems by which natural resources meet the goals of society is shown in Fig 4. It indicates that all four systems change with time, and that past and present uses of natural resources have an influence on future uses. Some of the subsystems and goals are presented in the amplified diagram in Fig 5.
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Fig 4 The cultural context: uses within society.
Fig 5 Systems and goals based on the utilisation of natural resources
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6 'World development' through 'industrialism'
The basic economic human unit is the household. To meet basic human goals a household has to create a sort of envelope around itself, with enough water and food, not too much wind, rain and sun, and minimum contact with predators and disease organisms. The more successful the family is the more comfortable it will be. Its ability to meet its needs depends on the resources that are available and its ability to use them.
The early periods of history are named after the natural resources that households extracted and processed to make their tools, utensils, implements and weapons. In primitive economies, surplus goods and services were swapped through the 'barter' system. Households accumulated wealth if they are able to gain more than they bartered on goods and services. The best way to become wealthy is to specialise in producing a limited range of goods. This led to the development of money as an acceptable payment for goods and services. Economic development occured through the creation of businesses based on specialized production, and the linking of markets which were far apart. Markets tend to increase the demand for goods and world development has proceeded on the basis of the more goods we buy, the more we want. This is expressed in Fig 6
Fig 6 A closed loop model of world development.
The envelopes we maintain around our households have rapidly become more complex and costly in their demands on natural resources. In Fig 7 this is represented in terms of the move from simple technologies invented to
Contents p 390 Edition June 1, 2008 obtain basic resources for prehistoric living to the modern methods of mass production which provide modern households with goods and services. This figure is also a causal diagram setting out the sequence of steps in production from nature to services.
Fig 7 A production model of world development from 'nature' for 'goods and services'.
The production model is amplified in Fig 8 to show the major and minor concepts involved.
As a system production involves the management of inputs to meet the goals of outputs.
The processes involved are the invention of technologies for extracting particular resources and their use in a production sequence to meet the demands of consumption.
The objects involved in a production sequence are 'nature', i.e the local environment's useful physical and biological components (which are defined as natural resources) the raw materials that can be derived from these resources, the goods they can be turned into, and the services required to support production and markets.
Many different forms of human behaviour are involved in production which, sequentially, may be broadly categorised into 'learning about the resources', 'extracting the resources', 'manufacturing the goods', and 'servicing the producer and consumer'.
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Fig 8 Conceptual diagram of production
World economic development is now carried forward through the spread of closed loop industrial production systems of the kind represented in Fig 9.
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Fig 9 Production: the spread of industrialism
In sequence 15 steps of local development are outlined in Fig 9 as follows:-
1 Settlement in an area with potential natural resources
2 Investigation of the potential for production.
3 This involves learning about the resources and ways of processing them.
4 Selection of a production system.
5 Setting up a business to turn the resources into goods.
6 This has the aim of generating productive capital, or profit.
7 These can be used to expand the economic horizons of the community.
8-9 Success of the business will allow more investment of monetary and, commodity capital in the business.
10 As the business expands it will require increased linkages with its raw materials and markets, via improved transport; and with information about other operations, to keep the business competitive.
11 A successful business expands and makes ever increasing demands upon the environment for more natural resources.
12-13 Transport and information linkages provide a means of assessing the amount and value of the resources to the business, and as the resources
Contents p 393 Edition June 1, 2008 become scarce relative to demand, and/or too costly to extract, questions will be asked as to whether the business is in the right place.
14 There may also be increased local opposition to the increased use of the environment, and or its pollution by the business.
15 The outcome of 12-15 would be the closure of the business or its transfer to another part of the world where the cycle will start all over again.
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6 The Role of Industry in The Natural Economy of Change
The satisfaction of our needs and wants for goods and services brings about changes in the environment and the way we live Physical change in our surroundings occurs because new goods and services have a varied appearance and character. Social change takes place because new designs alter the way people see the world and adopt new ways of life. Change is stabilised as the 'new' becomes the 'familiar'.
Differences in design arise because the circumstances of production and consumption change. Inventions, and the discovery of new resources, are behind innovations in design because they provide ideas for economic progress. New goods and services incorporate new ways of thinking. Discoveries of scientists generate novel ideas about the nature of materials and energy. They are applied by entrepreneurs who have new ideas about the value of objects in the market place.
People are expected to purchase new objects because they display one, or several, of the following desirable qualities:-
- they improve health; - they provide a new pleasurable experience; - they are better at doing a job; - they save time; - they last longer; - they are better looking; - they are more compact; - they have the ingredients to set a new fashion.
Designers have a key position in natural economy, because they make sets of instructions for the production of particular kinds of goods or services. Goods may be designed as individual objects, or conceived as collections of objects which are set out in a particular spatial pattern. Examples are, a chair, an electric motor, a house, a housing estate, and a factory. The job of a designer is to prepare instructions, patterns, or models, for production at the right price that can make a profit. These designs are used by manufacturers to manage the inputs of materials, energy and labour in a production process to deliver a good or a service.
Advertising is important in getting new things accepted and valued. In this sense it is a process to overcome resistance to novelty. Increasingly, in a global economy, where the new has to displace an older product with the same functions, advertising creates myths that the product will be more effective in producing fun, excitement, comfort, pleasure and leisure.
Design, aided by advertising alters the way people see commodities and makes them into consumers. Consumerism is increasingly driven by the desire of large segments of the world population to purchase the 'new'. The act of purchase provides investment capital to generate more ideas, and mass shopping is an impulsive behaviour pattern which increases demand for
Contents p 395 Edition June 1, 2008 novelty. This double positive cycle of feedback from consumers to producers is presented diagrammatically in Fig 10 .
Fig 10 The natural economy of consumerism
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7 How the industrial revolution began: producers, traders and consumers
It was in the 1780s and 90s that England experienced the first phases of its 'industrial revolution'. Although the concept of an industrial revolution has been queried by some economic historians, during these years a total change in English society began to which to the label 'revolution' still deserves to be attached. The objective of these changes was the production of useful objects which household tasks easier and living and travelling more comfortable, and convenient. Each of these goods carried a story of of people as inventors, manufacturers, traders and consumers. The questions to be answered about any object are why was it invented: how was it made; who sold it; and why was it bought?
Producers
- Inventors The central feature of the industrial revolution was not mechanisation but the successful mastering of natural forces which hitherto had mastered people. In the year 1776, when the Americans drafted their Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith published his Wealth of Nations, an enthusiastic versifier hailed the potential inventions, which unlocked Nature's secrets, in prophetic language:
The time may come when nothing will succeed But what a previous Patent hath decreed; And we must open on some future day The door of Nature with a patent key.
Behind the increase in production which technical advance made possible, was a pride in human capacity. This pride went along with a union of art and industry in the first stages of the industrial revolution, and appealed to the imagination of poets as well as to the reason of economists.
The consequences of industrial expansion continued to proliferate unceasingly. Once opened, the door of Nature could not be closed again. The work of the first generation of pioneers was followed up by imitators and new inventors: discoveries led relentlessly to new discoveries.
In 1774 Joseph Priestley, in his Birmingham laboratory, discovered that air was not an elementary substance and went on to discover that green plants breathe out oxygen in sunlight and so make a biochemical basis for the animals who breathe it. This opened up research into the nature of chemical processes which underlay the industrial revolution in that could only be understood when fire itself came to be understood as a process. Between 1803-8 a Quaker schoolmaster called John Dalton turned the vague knowledge of chemical combination into the precise modern conception of atomic theory. In these five years ten new elements were found.
The basis for modern ecology was brought to England by Benjamin Stillingfleet in the 1760s who introduced the work of Linnaeus and his
Contents p 397 Edition June 1, 2008 students to Britain. Benjamin produced the first systematic British 'Calendars of Flora' . His motivation was the belief that only by understanding the timing of botanical growth and development can farmers and horticulturists produce efficient production systems. For Linnaeus and his followers, an important motivation was knowledge to augment economic gains from the exploitation of natural resources. Amateur naturalists, like White, were motivated by a desire to live in peaceful coexistence with other organisms. These two threads of ecological history are still with us. Globally, they are at the heart of our dilemma to proceed with world development, whilst trying to maintain a sustainable supply of Nature's bounty. Nationally, the need to balance the two forces is expressed in plans for sustainable development and biodiversity- the political response to the 1992 Environment Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
In a sense, the history of the years from 1770s to the 1870s is the history of a continuing scientific inventions which also affected agricultural production. Stillingfleet was one of the first to and carry out experiments on the domestication of meadow grasses with the aim of improving pastoral farming.
The course of agricultural innovations had followed four main lines from before the beginning of the century:
- the extension of the amount of cultivated land through the enclosure of open fields and the opening up of waste; - an improvement in farming practices; - the introduction of new crops; - and the invention and application of new types of agricultural machinery.
These changes increased agricultural production to meet the rise in population. The advances have sometimes been described as an 'agrarian revolution', running parallel to the industrial revolution, and following a similar pattern of invention and enterprise. In fact, the word 'revolution' seems inappropriate when applied to a series of gradual changes some of which can be traced back to the seventeenth century and many of which had only influenced farming in a very limited way before I800.
- Manufacturers From I775 onwards James Watt and Matthew Boulton, in a classic partnership of technical inventor and businessman, were producing new-type steam engines which saved the serious loss of energy in the earlier Newcomen machines. In 1782 Watt went on to patent a 'sun and planet motion' steam engine transforming the up-and-down motion of the piston into a rotary motion. From this time onwards it was possible to use steam engines as the means of motive power in factories.
Opening the door of Nature in workshop, factory, mine, and forge, and doctors surgery was the great technical achievement of the eighteenth century, although developments in scientific thought and economic activity during the seventeenth century had made the achievement possible, and prophets like Francis Bacon had foreseen it.
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The manufacture of new agricultural implements and machines was another feature of the century. Most of the improvements in farm practices, however, were strictly localised, and in the case of machinery there was a long lag between invention and application. Even the drill marketed by Jethro Tull in the early eighteenth century was not generally adopted until the nineteenth.
What seems clear in the national story of agriculture is that relatively small local improvements produced immediate commercial results long before the new technical devices of ploughing, sowing, reaping and threshing were generally adopted.
Traders
After 1782, almost every statistic of industrial output reveals a sharp upward turn. More than half the growth in the shipments of coal and the mining of copper, more than three-quarters of the increase of broadcloths, four-fifths of that of printed cloth, and nine-tenths of the exports of cotton goods were concentrated in the last eighteen years of the eighteenth century. There was no sudden break with the economic past, no over-night upheaval, no universal transformation. England still remained a predominantly agricultural and trading community. Many of the new industrial enterprises grew out of the trade networks which existed before the exploitation of steam power. Most of the new industrial units were small and highly localised. However, the economic benefits were gained by mass production which meant the end of family cottage industries such as weaving.
The disasters of the American War were forgotten in a wave of national prosperity: before long Britain was selling more goods to an independent America than she had ever sold to colonial America. 'Move your eye which side you will', wrote Arthur Young, 'you behold nothing but great riches and yet greater resources.'
Because there were no national population surveys in the 18th century it is difficult to assess the extent to which national trade boosted by the industrial revolution reached people who were mostly living in the countryside. The first snapshots are the local trade directories of the early 19th century. The first national picture emerged from the census of 1851. This showed that every community had a mix of the old traditional cottage crafts producing and trading to meet local demand, such as shoemakers and blacksmiths, to shops backed by external capital selling the latest wares to emerge from distant factories.
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Consumers
- Pursuading people to buy
This period also coincided with the beginnings of consumerism driven by advertising. Dr. Johnson, criticising advertisements in The Idler of 1759, mentions with special scorn 'The True Royal Chymical Washball' which besides ridding the skin of all 'Deformities, Tetters, Ringworm, Morphew, Sunburn, Scurf, Pimples and pits or redness of the Small Pox' is warranted to 'give an exquisite edge to the razor, and so comfort the brain and nerves as to prevent catching cold'.
Among the toilet items taxed under a Statute of George II in 1786 are powders, pastes, balls, balsams, ointments, oils, waters, washes, tinctures, essences and liquors; among the toilet waters are listed 'Suave', 'Sans Pareille', 'Vento's Italian Water' and 'Miss In Her Teens'.
- 'Desirabilty' in design and 'satisfaction' in taste
The subject of Natural Economy deals with the ways in which local cultures perceive natural resouces and process them to meet a social purpose. For the most part it deals with the questions of how the resources are used, but the study of social purposes of the materials and objects produced is central, because global consumerism is now driving world development. The 'hows' and 'whys' of manufacturing and business which satisfy these demands offer many routes for the personal study of 'place'.
The investigation of the relationships between people and place can begin by asking how artifacts, such as buildings, constructed landscapes and everyday household objects relate to a place, and how specific geographical factors or human conditions affected the design and fabrication of the artifacts made and used there. Analysis of this information reveals attidues of taste, transmission of ideas, trade routes, ethnic identity, and a host of other factors, that contribute to creating a cultural profile of a specific place.
This model deals with the creation of household objects that fall into the category of 'decorative arts', because they are readily accessible and possess many layers of meaning. Investigating their social uses in the household, points of view of their design, construction, and their roles in larger technological, economic and cultural networks, opens these layers to a dynamic, multidisciplinary interpretation of the local natural economy.
Objects result from many marketplace decisions and backroom ideas which affect choice, cost, availability and marketing strategies. Therefore, properly recognised and described, objects may suggest meaningful links to broader questions or concerns about the economic system that produced them and, by reflection, the development of our modern culture. A dynamic interpretation will show that their design and availability of household objects influence social behaviour, and specific requirements for use inspire new object forms and variations. Changes in availability of natural resources and technology both impact on the shape and use of objects and routines of
Contents p 400 Edition June 1, 2008 everyday life and culture. Also, as rituals and customs change in relation to economic development, selection of appropriate objects for drinking and dining, leisure, personal care and so forth also change. Studying the design and fabrication of a given object from different regions reveals attitudes of taste, transmission of ideas, trade routes, ethnic identity and a host of other factors, that contributed to differentiating the natural economy of a specific place at a specific time.
Finally, understanding the historical context of objects allows us to relate them to changes in production systems. Despite the similarities in processes among the various pre-industrial trades, the tools and specific skills necessary to execute them varied significantly and required substantial investment of money to aquire them and time to learn their use. To reduce costs and provide consumer choice, preindustrial makers employed production systems that relied to varying degrees on parts standardisation, specialised labour, and other trade practices. By interchanging standard parts and patterns within their workshops makers could inexpensively multiply the variety of their products. This is the practice which became the hallmark of industrialisation.
In summary, every manufactured object can be defined from the consumers point of view within three notional planes, and addressed from its 'place character', its 'time character' and its 'production system' (Fig 12).
Fig 12 Notional planes for defining a manufactured object
This notional framework can be extended to provide routes for studying an object from six viewpoints: its time of manufacture; its place of manufacture; its history since manufacture; its process of manufacture; its purposes of manufacture and the resources used for its manufacure (Fig 13).
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Fig 13 Routes for learning about a manufacture object
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8 Political Economy: The Organisation of Society for Production
New Ideas About Society
Technical innovations, however important they were in multiplying industrial output, did not make up the whole of the industrial revolution. The changes of the late eighteenth century were social and intellectual as well as technical and economic. They were associated with a great increase in population, a further expansion of trade, the emergence of new social groups—both 'captains of industry' and skilled factory labour—the creation of new political pressures and new social institutions, new modes of thought and action, and, above all, the foundation of a new view of society. The whole view of the social order, which had been transmitted from the past was transformed under the influence of coal and iron, cotton and steam, growth and 'progress'. There are three aspects to the social background during the 18th century which supported the growth of industrialism.
- Freedom Society permitted and encouraged a considerable degree of individual mobility. Successful merchants, for example, could acquire land in the limited land market and convert their wealth into social status. Before long it often became difficult to account for the origins of the fixed property of an established family. 'Trade' wrote Defoe, 'is so far from being inconsistent with a gentleman that, in short, trade in England makes "gentlemen".'
Britain before the industrial revolution provided a place for what Adam Smith —and Thomas Malthus after him—called 'the natural effort of every individual to better his own condition', a desire, 'which though generally calm and dispassionate, comes with us from the womb and never leaves us until we go into the grave'.
- Wealth Within the whole social order there had been for many years a general infusion of increased wealth through all levels of society.
A letter to the Public Advertiser of 1760, after referring to 'our known division of the people of this nation into the nobility, the gentry and the commonalty', spoke of the enormous recent changes in the 'customs, manners and habits' of the third group. Trade, the writer went on, 'hath given a new face to the whole nation' and within the 'commonalty' there were many signs of new wealth and new pride. 'To conceive that so great a change as this in the people', he concluded, 'should produce no change in the Constitution' would be to show the same ignorance as a physician who asserted that 'the whole state of the blood may be entirely altered from poor to rich, from cool to inflamed, without producing any alteration in the condition of man.'
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Social Debate
The traditional view of society was being challenged by widespread debates on four basic social questions—the size of the population, the state of the poor, the provision of education, and public health. The background may be summarises as follows:
- Population Although there were many writers who still believed, as William Cobbett did at the end of the century, that the population of England was decreasing, there were others, more careful in their choice of evidence. The latter realised not only that the population was increasing but that population change was one of the most important determinants of the structure and prosperity of any society. In I750s David Hume had written an essay which expounded a thesis similar to that later made famous by Thomas Malthus in 1798 that 'the earth would be overstocked at last.'.
As the nineteenth century went by, 'population' moved abroad not only to colonies but, like capital, to places where the opportunities seemed brightest. As a result the whole picture of overseas development was transformed. It is impossible to understand the way in which Britain fitted into the Victorian world without giving a very important place to emigration abroad and migration from the countryside to the expanding towns and cities. Localised kinship networks and craft skills maintained from from generation to generation began to break up, and children began to grow up in a world of job opportnities which isolated them from their family roots.
In 1815 less than two thousand persons left the British Isles: in 1830 the figure was over 55,000; by the late 1840s and early '50s more than a quarter of a million emigrants were leaving in single years.
Although the United States had by far the greatest drawing power, for a time the discovery of gold in Australia provided a powerful counter- attraction and influenced over 800,000 persons to leave England for Australasia in 1852 alone. 'Auri sacra fames', wrote Lord Ashley in his Diary, 'what no motive human or divine, could effect, springs into life at the display of a few pellets of gold in the hands of a wanderer. This may be God's chosen way to fulfil his commandment and "replenish the earth".'
- Poverty In the last twenty five years of the eighteenth century there was an increasing preoccupation with the condition of the poor and the foundation of a number of philanthropic organisations designed to assist them. In 1796, for example, the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor was set up, with the intention of making 'the inquiry into all that concerns the poor and promotion of their happiness a science'. A year later Sir Frederick Morton Eden produced his famous three volume survey of the state of the poor. The conditions of
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the poor and the local systems for relief are well documented in parish records.
- Education The third controversy was concerned with the question of 'Should the poor be educated? During the course of the eighteenth century various attempts had been made, particularly in the charity schools, to teach them reading and writing, or sometimes reading by itself. Such efforts were concerned not with refashioning the way of life of the person but with keeping them in their due place in society by instruction in the scriptures and the catechism.
By the 18th century, the grammar schools had became the secondary schools of the rich. Meantime a movement was growing to provide elementary education of a utilitarian character for those who had no prospect of proceeding to "grammar." In the course of the seventeenth century it gained strength, and some reformers stressed the part the state should play in it. What elementary education was available to the less prosperous levels of society was largely provided by small private schools; but some foundations, such as Christ's Hospital (the Blue Coat School) and Westminster, were explicitly created to educate the poor in reading, writing and arithmetic, and to teach them a trade. Aggressive capitalism had not yet adopted its later intolerant attitude to the children of the poor. They were the victims of circumstances, to be rescued from the vices of idleness and moral degradation. Accordingly, suitable schools should have a strong religious bias and an essential part of the curriculum should be a training in a craft. Such were the views of those who promoted the Charity School Movement.
Teaching of crafts occupied an important place in the curriculum, and education of this sort aroused the greatest enthusiasm among the middle class, who believed that children of the poor should be trained for industry and launched on their industrial careers as quickly as possible. This view was put bluntly by Mandeville (Essay Charity Schools) in 1723:
"Few children make any progress at school, but at the same time they are capable of being employed in some business or other, so that every Hour those of poor People spend at their Books is so much time lost to the Society. Going to school in comparison to Working is Idleness, and the longer Boys continue in this easy sort of Life, the more unfit they'll be, when grown up for downright Labour, both as to Strength and Inclination. Men who are to remain and end their days in a Laborious, Tiresome and Painful Station of Life, the sooner they are put upon it at first, the more patiently they'll submit to it for ever after."
The fact that attendance of orphans and other pauper children relieved the rates was another reason why the charity schools were popular with the prosperous.
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However, the opportunies for children of a poor families to better themselves was often left to a chance meeting with a local benefactor.
Defenders of the Sunday School Union, founded in 1785, urged that education produced 'orderly and decent comportment' and deterred children from crime. Despite this limitation of purpose, the charity schools were often attacked on the grounds that 'education' threatened 'the great law of subordination': in the last decades of the century, similar arguments were used against the Sunday schools.
When the eighteenth-century philanthropist, Hannah More, opened a school for poor children in the Mendips, she was accused by local farmers of inciting village children to mutiny and disaffection. 'The poor', declared the wife of the leading local farmer, 'were intended to be servants and slaves: it was pre-ordained that they should be ignorant.' Her husband added the appropriate conclusion. 'If a school were to be set up, it would be all over with property, and if property is not to rule what is to become of us ?'
- Health For most diseases in the 18th century little could be done because of the lack of knowledge about the nature of bacteria which were the main agents for the spread of infectious diseases. The first treatment which brought up public health as a social issues was vaccination against small-pox. During the 18th century about 9% of the mortality in England was due to small-pox. Vaccination discovered in 1796. Edward Jenner, a Gloucestershire village GP, inoculated a boy with lymph from a case of cow-pox and found six weeks later, when he tried to inoculate with virulent small-pox that the disease would not develop. This new vaccination became rapidly and widely popular. However, it was not until the vaccination act of 1840 that the government recommended vaccination. The Compulsory Vaccination Act of 1853 ordered that every child should be inoculated before reaching the age of three months. By 1875 mortality due to small-pox was about 1.5%.
Government Intervention in Trade
- The Corn Laws: An Attempt to Integrate Political and Natural Economy
The aim of the Corn Laws was to maintain boom prices for British cereal crops after the Napoleonic Wars had ended. The particular objectives were:-
- 'to give farmers confidence'; - to maintain a stable output; - to avoid dependence on foreign countries; - and to offset the burden of taxes borne by the landowners.
The Corn Law of 1815 prohibited the entry of foreign corn into Britain until the home price reached 80S. a quarter, with 67S. as the corresponding figure for colonial wheat. This government measure, which was bitterly attacked at the
Contents p 406 Edition June 1, 2008 time as 'most obnoxious and ill-advised', was the product of a parliament dominated by country landowners, which from 1813 onwards had been investigating and reporting on conditions in the corn trade. From 1813 to 1815 the fortunes of the landed interest, particularly the farmers, had recently suffered first as a result of an immense crop (followed by a drastic fall in prices) in 1813, and second from a harvest of poor quality in 1814 and renewed imports of foreign corn.
William Cobbett was one of the few writers in 1815 to predict that the new corn law would not produce the economic results the landlords hoped to achieve, but would only exacerbate social conflicts. Within one year, his prediction seemed justified—in spite of the coral law, the price of wheat fell from 71S. 6d. in March 1815 to 52S. 10d. in January 1816—and within seven years the prophecy had undoubtedly come true.
The law was rigid and inflexible and there was an inevitable delay in the response of imports because the ports opened and closed as the price level fluctuated. There was no steady price for the home farmer. After a brief taste of increased incomes again, by 1820 and 182I both landlords and farmers were raising the cry of 'distress' louder than ever before and a Select Committee of the House of Commons was set up to consider the scores of petitions which had poured in from the rural areas. A second Select Committee was set up in 1822, when the report of the first had proved unacceptable to many members of Parliament.
The debates were always conducted at different levels. There was a highly technical discussion between 'political economists', a noisy and emotional conflict between economic interests, a zig-zag argument among politicians, many of whom changed their minds, and eventually a war of highly-organised political associations, employing new resources of propaganda.
This range of arguments, most of which were to be repeated time and time again during the period from 18I5 to 1846, shows how significant the corn law question was from the start in the history of public opinion. Different interests and classes took up different stances.
Landlords, who had done so well during the war, welcomed the corn law which they believed would help to maintain their high war-time rents. They claimed to speak also on behalf of tenant farmers and small freeholders, and even of agricultural labourers, although there were conflicts of interest between landowners and tenants and between farmers and landless labourers.
Manufacturers disliked the bill, because they thought it would keep wages too high. However, they could not use this argument if they wished to gain the support on this issue of skilled artisans and unskilled workers. Thus, English society in 1815 was too complex in its structure to permit an easy and straightforward antagonism between town and country; other antagonisms cut across the old dividing line.
- Back to Gold
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Another attempt by politicians to back industrial investment also backfired. In 1819 the House of Commons agreed that the Bank of England should resume cash payments to the face value of paper notes. This 'gold standard' had been suspended by Pitt in 1797. The return to gold, which was decided upon after long and at times tense debate, led to an immediate improvement in Britain's foreign exchange position, and gold began to flow into the coffers of the Bank of England.
But the domestic effects of the return to gold were far more controversial. Prices, which had already fallen sharply from their war-time peak of 1814, fell sharply again between 1819 and 1821, much more sharply than the advocates of the immediate return to gold, had anticipated. The circulation of notes under £5 in value was reduced from £7,400,000 in February 1819 to £900,000 in August 1822. There were vigorous complaints not only from agriculturists like Sir John Sinclair that the interests of the City of London had triumphed over the interests of farmers, but also from iron-masters and some other industrialists that full employment had been sacrificed to 'sound money'.
Lord Byron in his Age of Bronze (1823) described the collapse of the 'landed interest'. Napoleon's 'vices', he said, 'destroyed but realms, and still maintained your prices':
'But corn, like every mortal thing, must fall, Kings—conquerors--and markets most of all'.
According to Thomas Attwood, the Birmingham banker and ironmaster, 'Peel's Act' had created 'more misery, more poverty, more discord, more of everything that was calamitous to the nation, except death, than Attila caused in the Roman Empire. Yet one group of industrialists strongly backed Peel. The leaders of the cotton industry, who looked to greatly increased international trade, strongly favoured a gold standard. 'We want a regulating medium', the treasurer of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce remarked in 1821, 'and there is nothing like gold for that purpose.
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9 Interactions Between Political Economy and Natural Economy
Civil Disturbances
In 1816 and early 1817 there was gloom in the countryside and distress in almost all industrial areas. At Birmingham 'nearly a fifth part of the population were receiving weekly relief'; in the iron-producing area of the Black Country there was the 'silence of unmingled desolation' inside many of the great ironworks and the cries of angry men outside; in Lancashire weavers were complaining that 'now, when the waste of war is over, our sufferings are become more general and deeper than ever'; at Newcastle-on-Tyne the colliers were rioting in the same grim mood as the farm labourers of Ely and the townsfolk of Bridport.
All over the country, as one Lancashire radical, Samuel Bamford, put it, 'whilst the laurels were yet cool on the brows of our victorious soldiers . . . the elements of convulsion were at work amongst the masses of our labouring population.'
It was the Manchester and Lancashire, rather than the Birmingham or London pattern of discontent, which created most fear between 1817 and 1820. In the 'bad year' 18I6-I7, the Manchester working classes organised a march on London, the so-called march of the Blanketeers: although 'the mob was unarmed and conducted themselves quietly', local magistrates, assisted by cavalry, were careful to see that most of them got no further than Stockport. In the 'good year' 1818, there were strikes both of spinners and weavers. This time, the Manchester magistrates, no longer concerned with a threat to the Constitution and by no means well-disposed themselves to the dissenting mil]owners, were sympathetic to the weavers' demands, but the employers were adamant.
Their failure to make any concessions, particularly to respond to the demand for a legal minimum wage, turned the disgruntled workers back to politics again, and in 1819, the worst of all years, the weavers led the radical campaign, which culminated in August at the Massacre of Peterloo. The shift in tactics is well illustrated in a letter written by a Manchester reformer to the Manchester Mercury on the eve of Peterloo.
'As to the present distress, you and those of your kidney say that it's all owing to bad markets, want of trade with foreigners and such like.... The root of the evil in my judgement, lies deeper by a long way.... We are unsound in the vitals—there's the seat of mischief—the Constitution's become rotten to the core.... Corruption's at the very helm of the State ... and what's the remedy, then? Why reform—a radical complete Constitutional Reform
The events that followed have, in retrospect only, a grim inevitability about them. When on 16th August thousands of workers from Manchester and the surrounding cotton districts gathered peacefully in St. Peter's Field to listen to Orator Hunt—their injunctions were 'cleanliness, sobriety, order and peace', and among their slogans was 'No Corn Laws'—the magistrates, scared of an uprising, employed the local yeomanry to arrest him. When the forces of the
Contents p 409 Edition June 1, 2008 yeomanry proved inadequate, they called in regular cavalry to disperse the crowds. A savage struggle followed in which eleven people were killed and over 400 wounded. Within a few days the damning term 'Peterloo' had been coined.
But the 'crisis' did not lead to the civil war and revolution which many 'respectable citizens' feared. The main reason for the relief of tension was the fact that economic conditions improved again, and as Cobbett said, 'I defy you to agitate a fellow with a full stomach.'
The First Economic Cycle
At the beginning of I820 the Manchester Mercury pointed out that prices were rising and merchants were predicting a new period of prosperity. Before the end of 1821 the Morning Chronicle could report that 'Peace, Cheerfulness and Industry, with their estimable train of advantages' had returned to the 'extensive towns of Manchester, Salford and their widespread neighbourhood'.
The years between 1821 and 1825 justified promise and prediction. In Birmingham and the Black Country, as in Lancashire, conditions improved, unemployment fell as iron prices rose, and discontents melted away. The culminating point was reached in the years 1824-25, which some economic historians have considered as the first truly modern cyclical boom in British economic history. Certainly at that time there was a stock market boom as well as a peak of industrial activity, and a wave of speculation as well as a burst of real investment. While the market value of Mexican and South American shares soared and the daring turned to South America as a new Eldorado, the volume of domestic building broke all previous records. During the whole of the first fifty years of the nineteenth century, the figure for brick production in I825 was surpassed only in 1846 and 1847.
'On all sides', the Annual Register claimed in 1825, 'new buildings were in the process of erection.' The King's speech for that year proclaimed that there had never been a period in the history of the country when 'all the great interests of society were at the same time in so thriving a condition'.
Long Term Effects on Parliamentary Reform
It was the corn law of 1815 and the return to 'sound money' in 1819 which set the terms of the post-war controversy, and it was not until the 1840s that the Bank Charter Act of 1844 and the repeal of the corn laws of 1846 (both measures carried by Sir Robert Peel) brought to a near-conclusion debates which stretched back into the heart of the Napoleonic Wars. The prosperous conditions of late-1824 stimulated the formation of trade unions, which sprang into existence on all sides, and in such diverse industries as textiles, dyeing, mining, and shoemaking there were strikes. The unions continued to grow. In 1825 —a year of very high food prices—Parliament passed a new Combination Act which permitted the existence of trade unions but strictly limited their ability to strike. By the time that it came into effect, the boom had broken, and at the end of 1825 there were signs of the popular return to
Contents p 410 Edition June 1, 2008 politics which was to reach its climax in the prolonged agitation for a Reform Bill. There was a widespread feeling that laws needed to be changes so that all participants in the spread of industrialism could participate through the ballet box.
This took almost half a century to work its way through to political reform. The Queen's speech in February 1867 forecast measures which 'without unduly disturbing the balance of political power, shall freely extend the electoral franchise'; it was followed up six days later by the government's introduction of general resolutions on the need for reform. The resolutions were extremely general. They included, for instance, as a first clause, 'the number of electors for counties and boroughs in England and Wales ought to be increased' and as the ninth clause the delightfully vague suggestion that 'it is expedient that provision be made for the better prevention of bribery and corruption at elections'.
When the bill finally entered the statute books in August it virtually established complete and unlimited household suffrage as the foundation of the borough elections in England and Wales.
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10 Some 18th century models of Industrialism
Manufacturing
The geographical position of England fitted it to be not only the emporium of a world-wide commerce, as it already was by the middle of the eighteenth century, but a centre of manufacturing industry, for a time 'the workshop of the world'. 'Every facility seems at hand', one writer put it, 'for starting us on a manufacturing career.... Those metals which are of greatest utility in the useful arts, and the coal which is requisite in working them, are distributed conveniently, and in inexhaustible abundance, throughout the land.... With our insulated position we have a greater line of sea coast, and a greater number of capacious harbours, as compared with the extent of land surface, than any other nation in the world.
Such an inventory of natural resources was no guarantee of economic growth in the eighteenth century. That England was rich in coal and iron—relatively accessible coal and iron—and in a favourable position to import raw materials like timber and cotton from overseas was a pre-condition of large-scale industrial development, not a cause of it. The value of resources depends upon their usefulness, and their usefulness in turn depends upon changes in knowledge, in techniques and in taste. During the course of the eighteenth century new resources were tapped because of changes of this kind; and by the 1780S they had gone far enough to produce visible results in the form of striking increases in output.
Three major technical advances were of the utmost importance: -the mechanisation of the textile industry; - the emergence of a new technology of coal and iron; - and the introduction of steam power.
Behind these advances there was a long history of experiment and innovation; before them, in the 1780s, there was a bold vista of possible future expansion. The main course of technical advance could be foreseen for years to come.
Mechanisation in the textiles industry affected all basic processes from the preparation of raw materials to the making of finished articles for sale. In the story of technical improvement, it was the relatively new branch of the industry, cotton, unfettered by traditional organisation, which led the way, not the old British staple, wool, or the luxury fibre, silk. From the 1730s onwards, inventions in both spinning and weaving (interacting and mutually stimulating) had attracted capital, concentrated labour, increased output and swollen imports and exports. The decade from I780 saw not only a very sharp increase in output but a number of important new developments in the technical and economic structure of the industry.
The great manufacturer, Richard Arkwright, who had set up a chain of successful factories in many parts of the country, had his patents cancelled in 178I and I785, and from then onwards the field of enterprise which he had pioneered was open to all. In I785 also, the steam engine was first applied to
Contents p 412 Edition June 1, 2008 spinning by rollers, and the way was prepared for a further concentration of factory industry, no longer of necessity situated by the fast moving country streams but free to settle in the heart of industrial towns. A year later, I786, the Rev. Edmund Cartwright completed the first working power loom which could be operated by horses, water wheels, or steam engines. Although the application of the power loom made relatively slow progress during the following twenty years, there no longer seemed any doubt that given time both the spinning and weaving processes in the cotton industry could become fully mechanised. Advance was far less rapid in the woollen industry, but the barriers to change were more social and economic than technical: by the time that they had been broken down, the cotton interest had established itself as the most powerful and prosperous industrial interest in the kingdom.
Looking back from a nineteenth-century vantage point, its propagandists could claim that England's 'treasures of iron and coal, its crystal mountain streams, and convenient outlets to the ocean', would never have been exploited in a spectacular manner 'if Providence had never planted the cotton shrub'. Without it, not only would the poor have been robbed of the benefits of cheap calicoes —there was no more 'moral' industry than cotton—but national exports and imports would have grown far less rapidly; 'those majestic masses of men which stretch, like a living zone, through our central districts, would have felt no existence; and the magic impulse which has been felt . . . in every department of national energy . . . our literature, our laws, our social condition, our political institutions, making us almost a new people, would never have been communicated. '
These were large claims, although large claims were doubtless justified in the light of the political victories of King Cotton in the 1840s. Against the background of the I7805 they need to be placed alongside the claims of other examples of technical invention and business initiative.
Unlike the cotton industry, the coal and iron industries, which provided basic resources for a new general technology in place of the old technology of wood, wind, and water, did not depend on large-scale imports of a raw material produced overseas nor did their progress lie in the substitution of machines for human labour. Once Abraham Darby (I709) and his successors at Coalbrookdale had substituted coke for charcoal in the blast furnace, the fortunes of the coal and iron industries, which had been separate from the beginnings of history, began to be linked together in what looked likely to be a permanent union. The dispersion of the iron industry amid the forests and beside the hills gave way to its massing along the coalfields.
Darby's achievement, which followed many seventeenth century failures to solve the same technical problem, anticipated the improvements in the textile industry by many years, but it was not until the latter half of the century that ironmasters outside Darby's Shropshire (and Denbighshire) fully exploited the new discovery. The crucial new invention was that of Henry Cort (and Peter Onions, working independently), who patented a combined puddling and rolling process in I784 which made possible the large-scale production of wrought iron by means of coal fuel. Fortunately for the growth of the industry, Cort's patent rights were quickly annulled in I785, and during the next ten
Contents p 413 Edition June 1, 2008 years, iron became the master material of the industrial revolution, being used not only by specialist metal industries, like armaments or hardware, but in the form of machinery by almost every industry in the country. At Coalbrookdale itself, even the window sills, and tombstones in the village churchyard, were made of iron. John Wilkinson was the most strenuous sponsor of his favourite metal. Perhaps more than any other individual he made his contemporaries conscious of the technical and aesthetic claims of iron as a peace-time commodity, constructing iron bridges, building iron boats which sceptics declared were bound to sink, manufacturing forty miles of cast iron pipes for the water supply of the city of Paris in I788 (and also for New York), and insisting that when he died his body should be buried in an iron coffin.
During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries considerable sections of the British iron industry were modernised and expanded. In 1788, over 60,000 tons of pig iron were made in England and Wales, as against 25,000 sixty years before. The figure had risen to 125,000 tons eight years later and the number of blast furnaces had increased from 85 to 125. Steel, which was not used to any significant general extent until the middle of the nineteenth century, was being produced in sealed crucibles at Sheffield by Benjamin Huntsman in the I7405: by I787 there were twenty crucible steel works in England, and the secret of production was still not known on the Continent. Before the cheapening of steel and its production in great quantities in late Victorian England— and in even greater quantities overseas—the triumph of iron seemed complete. The Crystal Palace of 1851, with its combination of iron and glass, was the crowning achievement of the new iron age—the wrought-iron gates of Hyde Park came from Coalbrookdale—and even in the World of Utopias, J. S. Buckingham's ideal city of 1849 was designed to be constructed almost entirely of iron.
The abundance and cheapness of iron made many of the immediate consequences of its production far from Utopian: unearthed in large quantities and exploited not by science but by rule of thumb methods, it encouraged waste. The same was true of its sister material, coal. England was singularly fortunate that beneath its surface were the largest coal reserves in Western Europe outside the Ruhr, but their exploitation depended upon ransacking the rich natural environment rather than taming it. The concentration of coal and iron production created broad acres of 'black country', with the prospect of more efficient fuel and cheaper power as over- riding economic incentives. Already in the early years of the eighteenth century, the coal producing regions of the far North had been opened up, depending on close ties with the busy London market, and Sir Henry Liddell had asked in 1729, 'what signifies all your Balls, Ridottos, etc., unless Navigation and the Coal Trade flourish?' In the course of the eighteenth century almost every local economic change increased the demand for coal for heating long before it was needed for power. The subsequent expansion of the industry depended not only upon the increase of demand but on finding solutions to technical difficulties in the mines. Efficient pumping devices were necessary before deep and prolonged pit working could be ensured: similarly, to extend the area of the mines, it was essential to improve wagon ways and tracks. Many of these technical difficulties were solved in the course of the
Contents p 414 Edition June 1, 2008 century, and the total British annual coal output rose from three million tons in I700 to I0 million tons a hundred years later. This great increase was merely a prelude to the more than twenty-fold increase during the next century.
The victory of coal and iron would not have been complete without the third great technical advance, which carried coal and iron into all parts of the country—the introduction of steam power. The invention and progressive improvement of the steam engine were regarded with pride by many of those who had seen it brought to perfection, 'the exclusive offspring of British genius fostered and supported by British capital'. 'To enumerate the effects of this invention', one of them wrote, 'would be to count every comfort and luxury of life. It has increased the sum of human happiness, not only by calling new pleasures into existence, but by so cheapening former enjoyments as to render them attainable by those who before never would have hoped to share them. Nor are its effects confined to England alone; they extend over the whole civilised world; and the savage tribes of America, Asia and Africa, must ere long feel the benefits, remote or intermediate, of this all- powerful agent.'
Steam power was legitimately regarded as the 'all-powerful agent' in the mastery of Nature, affording two indispensable advantages to the pioneers of industry.
First, it provided adequate power to manufacture the enormously increased volume of materials in almost every branch of production: water power was intermittent and insufficient.
Second, it freed industry from dependence on fixed location: water power was available only at the falls of a river or near fast-moving brooks.
Necessity was certainly the mother of this invention. A year earlier Boulton had written to Watt, 'the people in Manchester and Birminham are steam mill mad.. I don't mean to hurry you but . . . I think we should determine to take out a patent for certain methods of producing rotative motion': the patent of 1782 was the answer. Followed up by other patents (1784, parallel motion: 1788, the 'governor', which facilitated regular and smooth working of the engine and which has recently been heralded as an early pointer towards automation) the 1782 model was of crucial importance in economising power and in stimulating output in many different parts of the economy. By continuing to hold the key patents until I 800, Boulton and Watt were at the centre of the new industrial scene, selling, in Boulton's picturesque phrase, 'what all the world wants—Power'. A catalogue of their customers is a catalogue of England's most active enterprise. In I783 John Wilkinson and the Coalbrookdale Company each ordered one of the new engines; a year later Josiah Wedgwood, who had built up a remarkably successful pottery business at Etruria in North Staffordshire, bought a second engine to add to the one he had purchased two years earlier; a year after that, Arkwright bought his first steam engine for use in one of his great spinning factories. Other engines were used in important eighteenth-century enterprises like flour mills, malt mills, breweries, and mills for crushing sugar cane. In 1800 there were 1l in use in Birmingham, 20 in Leeds, and 32 in Manchester.
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Altogether between I775 and 1800 Boulton and Watt turned out 496 engines, and their new foundry, opened in I795, was the largest and best-managed engineering works in the world.
The successful partnership of Boulton and Watt illuminates the business background of the three great technical advances made during the course of the century. Indeed, both inventiveness and organising ability must be given prominence in any study of the industrial revolution.
Agriculture
If the 1780s and I79Os were critical years in the story of English farming, it was not because of events and tendencies in the agricultural sector of the economy taken by itself—there were many signs of 'backwardness' there as well as 'improvement'—but because the whole place of agriculture in the economy was beginning to change as a result of the impact of industrialisation. Even then, the impact was not an immediate one, sharp and swift, but gradual and cumulative, and it still needs detailed study. As late as 1851 agriculture still employed one out of every four Englishmen over the age of 20, and its total working force far exceeded that of cotton, domestic service, or general labouring.
The four main changes need to be considered in more detail against this imperfectly studied background. Between 176I and I780 during the first phase of enclosure by Act of Parliament, 4,039 Acts were passed: there were a further 900 between 178I and 1800. Open field farming, while not such a rigid or inefficient system as has sometimes been suggested, was incompatible in most places with the long-term tendency to increase the size of farms or with the desire of individuals to specialise in the immediately profitable use of land. The Enclosure Commissioners, appointed to survey and allot land after the passing of an Enclosure Act, seem to have carried out their arduous and often prolonged work of apportionment very conscientiously.
The main, but not the only sufferers from their efforts were villagers with few resources or without clear-cut legal rights, those cottagers, for instance, who had enjoyed by custom free access to the limited resources of the waste. The national claims of businesslike agriculture or an efficient supply of food meant nothing to such downtrodden and dissatisfied people, and it was scant comfort to them that they had the sympathy of many philanthropists and even of some landlords in England made the 'take-off' into an industrial society with a divided and discontented village community in many parts of the country. The paradox was that it was not the discontented who were the revolutionaries, but those 'Improving' farmers who were prepared to break relentlessly with the past without providing social safeguards and those 'political economists' who believed that philanthropy was more of a curse than a blessing in the progress of industrialisation.
The other three lines of development have received less detailed attention from historians.
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The improvement in farming practices, associated with the work of livestock improvers such as Robert Bakewell and experimenters with crops and rotations, of whom Coke is the best known, made possible greater yields of beef and mutton and the employment of horses of greater power on the farm. The more general introduction of clover and turnips, crops which had made their way from the Continent in the seventeenth century and the increasing production of potatoes in the eighteenth century 'improved' stock-feeding. (To William Cobbett's disgust, the potatoes were also used to feed human beings). The slow movement of new ideas, the lack of basic techniques and the often unsatisfactory systems of leases and tenures held back 'revolutionary advances'. potatoes were produced in large quantities only near the new towns; turnips were not grown in Devonshire; inferior livestock were still being bred in many distant parts of the country; and it was not until improved methods of drainage were evolved after the 1830S that the 'Norfolk system' of farming with its elimination of wasteful fodder and its 'scientific' rotation could be fully adopted on the heavy intractable clay soils of the Midland counties.
Nonetheless, cumulative agricultural changes permitted a rapidly growing and increasingly urbanised population to be fed.
It is sometimes argued in addition that they forced men to leave the land and to seek their livelihood in the growing industrial towns. In fact, the growth of towns—one of the most important features of the period—seems to have been stimulated more by the attraction of higher industrial wages and the more varied economic opportunities towns afforded than by the movement off the land of a dispossessed surplus agricultural population. The cottage- owning population of the countryside grew alongside the urban population in many parts of the country during the late eighteenth century. There were three reasons for this.
First, the new 'improved agriculture' stopped short in most places at the point where mechanisation began, and it continued to demand large numbers of agricultural workers.
Second, a stimulus was given in the countryside to rural trades, like those of blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and mechanics, not only by agricultural improvement but also by developments in inland transport.
Third, despite the improvements in transport, there were still powerful barriers to long-distance movement. The towns grew as a result of local movements from the surrounding countryside, not of great treks from the countryside to the factories and furnaces. It was at the level of local, not of national, life that the Lancashire reporter to the Board of Agriculture complained that 'the advance of wages and the preference given to manufacturing employment, by the labourers in general, have induced many to forsake the spade for the shuttle.'
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11 Production for variety
Industrial production operates on the following principles
1 A perceived need or want- price limited or/or supply limited
2 Scientific and technical knowledge
3 Product design
3 Management of financial investment
4 Resources of materials energy and work force
5 Management of the production process
6 Distribution system
7 Profit on sales
The18th century factories developed from the cottage industries where a single craftsman was responsible for every stage of a manufacture from conception to sale. As early as the mid 18th century, in the founder industries of the industrial revolution, such as printed cloth and pottery, design had become necessary as a separate activity in production. This organisational change can be seen clearly in the pottery indusry were where the pottery master separated the tasks of designing pots and making them.
1 Perceived need or want- the Wedgewood pottery model
Demand for pottery
The years 1650 to 1800 were a period when new methods, materials and shapes were being developed and imported which affected the production of a range of common household goods. The British manufacture of pottery shifted from the small family concerns in cottages and part-farms to factories situated where there were large clay deposits.
The factory production of pottery expanded to meet the need for cheaper and more attractive versions of metal goods such as pewter plates and mugs, and metal cooking vessels. New types of pots were created to meet the growing fashion for drinking chocolate, tea and coffee. . To develop these business opportunites, it seemed to Josiah Wedgewood that he had to obtain 'ample recompense' from his workmen to make more pots, sell more pots, and also, if possible, increase the unit profit on them. All the extensive changes he subsequently introduced into the invention,
Contents p 418 Edition June 1, 2008 manufacture, and sale of pottery can be referred back to those three basic conditions of commercial success.
The required innovations
Method of sale When Wedgwood began production in 1759, potters normally sold their goods by sending batches of completed work either direct to markets, or to merchants. Wedgwood sold some of his wares this way, but also sold advance orders. To do this he opened showrooms with samples of his wares on display, but no stocks for sale. Customers' orders were passed to the factory, and the pots were made and delivered direct. Later, Wedgwood extended this system by sending out travellers with cases of samples in Britain and abroad, and by publishing illustrated catalogues of the wares, from which customers ordered. The advantage was that he did not have to tie up capital in unsold stock or risk making large quantities of designs for which there might be no demand.
Selling from samples and catalogues required the products to be completely uniform in quality, and identicle to the samples. However, maintaining absolute consistency was a major problem in pottery manufacture. In particular Wedgwood's main product of the early 1760s, his greenware, could not be reproduced reliably. The decoration was in the glazes applied over the moulded ornament, and the result depended on both the hand of the glazer and the conditions in the kiln, both of which were very variable. The inability to produce a consistent product made greenware unsuited to the method of sale by samples.
Research into glazing Wedgwood experiments with creamware to find a more reliable replacement for greenware. This had been produced in the Staffordshire potteries from the 1740s. It had a white earthenware body which gave constant results under a fairly wide range of firing conditions. But there was a problem in the glaze, which tended to vary in colour at different kiln temperatures, to run and become uneven in thickness, and to craze. After many experiments Wedgewood developed a glaze in 1765 which was reasonably satisfactory, although it tended to vary in colour and to run. It took several more years to perfect a creamware glaze that gave a completely uniform result.
Greenware had been unreliable because part of the decoration was in the colours of the glaze, which varied according to the firing conditions. To overcome this problem in creamware, Wedgwood did not use glaze colours, but glazed the pieces plain and decorated them with hand-painted enamels. The enamel was applied after the glaze firing, and then baked on at a much lower temperature. Enamelling was a reliable process and gave constant results. It was not new, as it had been used on porcelain and, in Staffordshire, on salt-glazed stoneware. However, it was a laborious and expensive technique and had not previously been used on the lower-valued earthenware products.
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Much of Wedgwood's early enamelling consisted of pictures and decoration in an attractive, though rather florid, freehand style. These traditional designs were complicated and hard to reproduce accurately and were unsuited to the requirement for quantity production. To prevent variation and to make enamelling cheaper, Wedgwood experiimented with enamel-printed transfers, which were applied to the pots and baked on. In time, the pictorial part of the enamel designs on creamware was generally applied by transfers, with the hand painters working only on edging and repeat patterns, which they could reproduce accurately.
Organising resources
Manufacturing skills Although pottery had once been a craft industry, in the sense that a single individual was responsible for all the stages of making a pot, this form of production had ceased in Staffordshire before the beginning of the eighteenth century. While pottery was a craft industry, as it was in Staffordshire until the end of the seventeenth century, the form of a pot was most likely decided upon by the man who was to make it. However, when the manufacture of pots was broken down into processes carried out by different workers, an additional stage was required, the preparation of instructions for the various workmen to follow: in fact, a design stage.
From the 1730s potters had specialised in one of the branches of the trade, such as throwing or handling, or making glaze and slip. A typical mid- eighteenth century pottery consisted of a number of workshops, each with employees engaged in a particular task. At Whieldon's pottery in the 1750s, the work was divided into at least seven different occupations, with each workman usually doing a single task.
As several craftsmen were responsible for the making of a single pot, no individual was able to make any major change to it. Even so, men at each stage still had some control over the final results. For example, a workman employed at sprigging - the application of moulded ornaments to a pot - could make minor variations between pots, while a man working at glazing could cause major ones. Wedgwood frequently complained about his workmen's apparent inability to produce consistent results, especially with the ornamental wares. Wedgwood wrote once to Bentley of his problems:
'. . . the mixtures, & the colours too, after all the attention we can give them are liable to so many accidents, & alterations, from the Workmens unhandiness and want of Ideas . . .
'For Instance when the Clays are perfectly mixt to produce a wildness, e extravaganza in the Pebble, if the Workman gives the batts a twist edgeways, instead of keeping them flatt when he puts them into the mould, a little stringiness is produced which shews the Pott, instead of a finely variegated Pebble.'*
Wedgwood had already shown his concern with consistency a few years earlier when he had written to his partner Bentley that he was 'preparing to
Contents p 420 Edition June 1, 2008 make such Machines of the Men as cannot Err.' For his creamware, just as much as his ornamental ware, this was indispensable to his success.
Wedgwood made the workmanship more reliable either by retraining the men or by dividing the labour into yet more stages, which could be supervised more closely. Teaching his men to work to higher standards than was customary in the potteries was both slow and unpopular with them. Breaking down the production process into more stages had the advantage that, for some of the tasks, he could make do with less skilled labour.
The introduction of enamelling on creamware is an excellent example: in greenware, the two functions of glazing and decoration had been combined in the single process of glazing, but in creamware, glazing and enamelliing were carried out by entirely separate sets of people whose tasks were defined by exact sets of instructions and supervised by overseers.
2 Product design
The first industrial designers Josiah Wedgwood was the first to develop the job of designer as a key to commercial success. The only novel things about the work of 20th century designers are the products they are called upon to design, from automobiles to radio sets and retractable ball-point pens. .
The work of designing, or modelling as it was known in the potteries, became a distinct and separate stage in the production of pots, although it was probably done by a craftsman or by the master potter working in the same factory. By the 1750s not only was modelling recognised as a separate activity, but there were individuals described as modellers, whose sole task was to make prototypes for the other craftsmen to work from. For example, William Greatbatch, who subsequently set up on his own and supplied many of the earthenware pots which Wedgwood fired with his green glaze, worked in the 1750s as a modeller for Whieldon.
Designing pottery by modelling In all fundamental respects, the nature of the work of modern industrial desginers who fuse ideas with manufacturing techniques, is identical to that of Wedgwood's humble modellers in the potteries. The success of his attempts 'to make machines of the men' depended on the exactness of the modellers' instructions, for, unless these were precise, it was impossible to restrain the men from introducing variations into their work.
Good modellers became increasingly indispensable to Wedgwood as the craftsmen's freedom to control the form of the pot was curtailed; nowhere was this more so than in creamware, where the craftsmanship was directed entirely towards achieving uniformity.
The modeller's value in preparing an exact design increased with the number of pots made from it, because he was, in a sense, taking over a fraction of the work that had once been done by each craftsman every time he made a pot. The monetary value of the modeller's work could actually be calculated
Contents p 421 Edition June 1, 2008 as the sum of the value of all those fractions of the craftsmen's work. Because of the importance of their services, modellers were the most highly paid employees in the potteries. In 1769, Arthur Young reported that a modeller received a salary of £100 per annum, approximately twice the wage of skilled craftsmen, who were paid between seven and twelve shillings a week; the sculptor John Flaxman, who worked freelance for Wedgwood, was paid at the rate of one guinea per day for preparing designs.
In spite of their apparently high earnings, modellers' wages did not necessarily correspond to the value of their work. If this exceeded what they were paid in wages, the difference would have been profit to the entrepreneur. Since the modellers were paid a flat rate and not a royalty for their designs, the employer's margin also increased with the number of pots produced from a single design, and the use of modellers opened up the way to greater profitability.
Whether the design was prepared by a craftsman who worked for the rest of his time at some other job in the factory, or whether it was prepared by an artist or professional designer living in a distant town and conversant with the latest fashionable tastes and ideas, the nature of the work was the same and owed its origins to the same cause. Though the professional designer might have been able to conceive a very much more stylish and marketable product, the fact that there was work for him to do was the result not of his inventive genius, but of the division of labour in the factory. Wedgwood's claim to fame as a producer rests not on the use of machines, but on the way he organised the workmen in his factory. It is therefore to his innovations in this quarter that we must look for connections between the design of the pots and the method of manufacture.
It was not just the division of labour in the potteries that made modellers indispensable to Wedgwood. Their value became even more apparent to him when he began to change the style of his pots to take up neo-classical motives. These had originated far from Staffordshire in the centres of fashion in London and abroad. Modellers from the potteries had little idea of the sorts of effect that were required of them as well as being generally reluctant to abandon the traditional ideas that had been handed down to them about the proper form of pots.
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Problems with artists as designers Wedgwood had constant difficulty in finding modellers who could design in the antique style, whether for his ornamental or his useful wares. A letter from Wedgwood in 1767 describes well the kind of problems he often had with his modellers:
'I have recd. the Terrine model & mould, the imperfections of which you describ'd so justly in your last letter that I need only say your acct. of them was not exagerated, & I fear Mr. Chubbard will not be of much use to us, which I am the more concern'd for, as he seems so well dispos'd to do his best for us . . .
'The Terrine is capitally defective in point of truth in the form of all the ends e sides which do not correspond at all with each other, there is the same fault in the ornamts. & likewise in the top of the dish, & the Cover. The carv'd ornaments are not finish'd, & the whole shews such a want of that Masterliness necessary in the execution of these works, as quite discourages me from thinking of employing him again as a modeler.'
Ultimately Wedgwood solved the problem by employing artists from outside the pottery industry to do the modelling. Understanding the principles of neo- classicism, these artists could use them to give modern products the character of the antique.
To overcome this problem, Wedgwood first employed artist modellers at his works, but he found them very troublesome. Their sense of artistic independence made them disinclined to follow the strict routine he expected of his other workmen, and they threatened the discipline and standards of work he was trying to enforce. Of this problem, Wedgwood wrote on one occasion:
'Oh! for a dozen good & humble modellers at Etruria for a couple of months. What creations, renovations, & generations shod. we make! Well - fair & softly, we must proceed with our own natural forces, for I will have no more fine modellers here, though I seem to wish for them, they would corrupt & ruin us all. I have been oblig'd to part with Radford. The hours he chose to work would, by the example, have ruin'd ten times better men than himself.'
Wedgwood's experiences with artists in his factory convinced him that he should not employ them in the works, but commission or buy designs from them. It was on this basis that he dealt with John Flaxman, who worked in London and sent his designs to Etruria. The operation of designing thus became not just separate but also geographically removed from the manufacture of the pots.
Wedgwood evidently understood that there were commercial advantages in employing artists to design his wares. As the middle and upper classes established stronger self-identity, they sought to distinguish themselves by
Contents p 423 Edition June 1, 2008 exclusive and fashionable tastes of their own. Provincial craftsmen from the working class could not help being ignorant of these fashions, and Wedgwood was compelled to find men who had connections with society and the ruling taste. In a letter to Bentley, he made it clear that he believed that customers would rate the work of Academicians more highly than that of ordinary plaster-cast makers, like John Flaxman's father, who is referred to here:
'I wrote to you in my last concerning Busts, I suppose those at the Academy are less hackneyed and better in General than the plaister shops can furnish us with: besides it will sound better to say this is from the Academy, taken from an original in the Gallery of etc. etc. than to say we had it from Flaxman.'
Although the demands of neo-classicism gave Wedgwood a particular reason for making use of artists to design his products, the introduction of designing as a specialist activity has been general to the development of all manufactures, going hand in hand with the division of labour. Otherwise, without a set of instructions to guide the craftsman, the manufacture of any article would have had all the unpredictability of a game of consequences as one man after another added his labour to it.
In summary, the development of forms that both suited the methods of manufacture and satisfied the tastes of the market was the work of design. It would not have been enough for the designs just to have appealed to eighteenth-century middle and upper-class taste, or just to have been such that the craftsmen could be relied on to repeat them consistently: the achievement of Wedgwood's modellers was to arrive at forms which satisfactorily fused the requirements of both production and consumption. In this, the modellers were occupied in exactly the same task as every subsequent designer.
Designing for variety The factory system of production was associated with a great increase in the variety of goods available for sale. The advantages of variety was that people, once they have satisfied their basic needs, are collectors. Consumerism is the development of this desire to:-
- purchase goods that bestow individuality
- collect varieties of a particular type of product they liked;
- purchase goods that expressed their gender or social class: the fastest change in 18th-19th century design was to be found in this category of consumer goods.
To most manufacturers of consumer goods in the nineteenth century, the commercial advantages of producing a great many different designs far outweighed the disadvantages in cost. However, the relative profitability of producing one or many designs depended somewhat upon the method of production employed.
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Handicraft industries lent themselves more easily than mechanised industries to the production of many different designs. Where the forming of each component and the final assembly was the work of a craftsman, it made little difference whether he worked to one design or another, but in more highly mechanised industries, the preparation of new dies, templates, jigs and moulds entailed great expense and was a disincentive was to varlety of design. The more complicated and expensive this operation became, the less varieties were produced.
Variety in pottery
The particular problem that compelled Wedgwood to adopt new designs for his pots was the need to find a way of creating variety without increasing the costs of production, and without having to accept irregularities and inconsistencies in workmanship. Wedgwood's customers expected a choice of designs, and indeed clamoured constantly for new patterns.
His original product, greenware, had been notable for the large number of moulded designs and for the variety of glaze effects. However, the unpredictability of the glazes made the wares unsuitable for sale by samples and catalogues. The production of many moulded designs was costly because of the capital cost of all the moulds that were required and the time that was wasted by the workmen in shifting from one design to another. In a letter to Bentley, written when he was trying to lower his workmen's piece rates, Wedgwood referred to these problems:
'I have had several serious Talks with our Men at the Ornamental works lately about the price of our workmanship, and the necessity of lowering it, especially in Flowerpots, Bowpots, and Teapots, and as I find their chief reason against lowering their prices is the small quantitys made of each, which creates them as much trouble in tuneing their f ddle as playing the tune, I have promised them that they shall make dozens and Groces of Flower, and Teapots, and of the Vases and Bowpots too, as often as we dare venture at such quantitys . . . I have now got a book for my own use and speculation, with the prices of workmanship of every article, I shall proceed in the same way where I think there is room for it, and the infallible consequence of lowering the price of workmanship will be a proportional increase of quantity got up; and if you turn to the columns of Calculation and see how large a share Modeling and Moulds and the three next columns bear in the expence of Manufacturing our goods, and consider that these expences move on like clockwork, and are much the same whether the quantity of goods made be large or small, you will see the vast consequence in most manufactures of making the greatest quantity possible in a given time.'
In the ornamental wares, to which this letter referred, the quantities produced were nothing like as great as in the useful wares, where even larger economies could be made by reducing the number of designs. To achieve such a reduction, while still satisfying his customers' demands for variety, Wedgwood decided in the Queensware to limit the number of shapes but to
Contents p 425 Edition June 1, 2008 offer a wide choice of enamelled decoration, which was applied to the pots after they had been fired, a relatively simple process.
When customers placed their orders, they had a wide range of decorative patterns to choose from: in 1774, there was a choice of thirty-one different enamel patterns on offer in addition to plain and gilt finishes. This meant that Wedgwood did not have to tie up capital in a large stock of different designs, for the enamelled ornament did not need to be applied until after receipt of the order. Once he had decided to concentrate all the work of decoration into the enamelling, the cost of decoration, whether by the cheap process of printed transfers or the more expensive one of hand painting, did not vary greatly if there was one design or a hundred. The only difficulty was that each pot had be equally suited to every design. Pots with a lot of relief pattern left few options in their decoration - though a feather-edged plate might be suited to a flower pattern, it would not take a geometric pattern. In order to make the Queensware designs suitable for a wide variety of enamelled patterns, plain and simple shapes with large expanses of smooth surface were needed. It so happened that neo-classical forms satisfied this requirement very much better than the rococo ones that Wedgwood and other manufacturers had been producing.
Variety in furniture- the chair
The effects of the change from entirely handicraft to more mechanised methods of manufacture upon the range of designs can be seen in the output of the Windsor chair manufacturers of High Wycombe. From early in the nineteenth century, each component of the chair, its seat, legs and balusters, was made by an independent craftsman, who sold his work to a chair master.
The masters employed framers to assemble the chairs, and undertook the distribution and sale of the chairs. All the processes of production, from sawing up the logs to the framing, were carried out by hand labour; one of the processes, the turning of the legs and stretchers, was the work of craftsmen known as 'bodgers'; who worked in huts in the woods around High Wycombe, turning the legs on primitive treadle lathes from timber that they themselves had felled. The number of designs of Windsor chair available was very great, as the surviving catalogues show.
Many of the masters would buy a standard, locally printed catalogue with three to four hundred designs in it and would have their own name overprinted on it, with an indication of which designs they manufactured. The larger firms generally offered well over a hundred designs, and one master, Edwin Skull, who had a specially printed broadsheet, advertised 141. As long as the masters relied on hand labour, there was almost no economic limit to the variety of designs they could offer, for they had only to instruct the craftsmen to produce a different design to obtain it.
In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the masters gradually began to introduce machines into their workshops, principally as a means of employing labour that was less skilled and therefore cheaper. Machines were developed that shaped the seats to a preset pattern, work formerly done by a man using
Contents p 426 Edition June 1, 2008 a curved adze. Other machines were introduced to bore holes at preset angles in the seat for the legs and uprights, a task previously done with a brace and bit by the framer, whose skill had lain in his ability to judge by eye the different angle needed for each hole. Increasingly, during the twentieth century, the masters began to employ machinery for every process: balusters were cut to jigs, and finally even the low-paid work of the bodgers was replaced by electric lathes in the factories, though several bodgers survived until 1939. With the use of so many machines, a major cost of production became the preparation of jigs to sufficiently high standards of accuracy to ensure that all the components of the chair would fit together. Because of the expense of making the jigs and setting up the machine tools, it ceased to be economic to vary the designs to any great extent, and as a result the number produced by each manufacturer fell in the inter-war years.
By 1980, the largest firm making Windsor chairs, Furniture Industries Ltd (whose products are known by the brand name Ercol), produced only seventeen designs, compared with the 141 offered by Edwin Skull a century earlier.
Variety in cotton print
During the nineteenth century it was not only handicraft production that manufactured variety; so, too, did many mechanised industries. Many cotton print masters who gave evidence to the 1840 Select Committee on design stressed the great number of patterns they produced every year. One printer, who annually introduced between four and five hundred new designs, said 'we endeavour to make a trade by variety rather than by excellence'. They were most explicit about their reasons for this policy - as the same printer explained:
'I should expect that the more I sowed, the more I should reap; that the more pains I took in producing new and good things, the more likely I should be to be rewarded by the public for my labour and expense.'*
Another manufacturer, who said he printed around four hundred new designs each year, commented, 'I think I should get more money by continually reproducing styles, as frequently as possible.'
To these manufacturers, variety of design was a principle of business and the key to profit, for it was the means by which they persuaded their middle-class customers to purchase textiles in excess of their needs. By constantly producing new designs, manufacturers were able to promote fashion; a lady who saw that the material of which her dress was made had become widespread and popular would purchase a new and original design to keep ahead in fashion, even though the first dress might be barely worn. As the same manufacturer who thought that the more he sowed the more he would reap replied when he was asked if he thought more patterns would lead to more dresses being worn:
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'I think it is exceedingly probable, because what is a dress after all? It is mere fancy and taste, it is not a mere covering, otherwise we should not have had any printed dresses at all. It is like paintings, there is no reason why a gentleman should possess a painting, but when he sees a good one, he wishes to have it.'
13 Production for bulk
RESOURCES TO GOALS: "STONE TO STEEL" (Fig 14)
Fig 14
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STEELMAKING (Fig 15)
Fig 15
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Appendix Reflections in Fressingfield
1 18th Century Consumerism: the Will of Elizabeth Catchpoll
2 Vaccination of the Poor
3 Job Creation in the 1820s
4 The End of Cottage Weavers
5 Parish Health Care: The Story of Boy Cracknell
6 Enclosure of Husshaw Green
7 The Education of Samuel Vince
8 Population Fressingfield (1750-1850)
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1 18th Century Consumerism: the Will of Elizabeth Catchpoll
The will of Elizabeth Catchpoll in 1762:
"I give and bequeath unto Elizabeth Tilney.... My Bed as it stand and also a pair of Sheets, and also all my Tea Equipage to her proper use and behoof for ever"
2 Vaccination of the Poor
During the smallpox outbreak in 1797/98 Dr. Girling was paid the large sums of £25.00.00, £29.00.00 and £27.14.02 and Dr. French £4.14.00 for inoculating 12 people - these sums, with the special bills for vinegar (the norm: disinfectant of the time), wine, gin, mutton and oranges as well as "goods". show the attention and generosity of the parish officers who had the unpleasant duty of collecting as well as disbursing the money. It is sad to read how many coffins, for adults and children, Thomas Etheridge, the carpenter, had to make at this time.
In the Spring of 1821 unemployment in the village was so extensive that a special parish meeting was convened to tackle the problem. In a surviving account of the meeting the cause identified as the farmers being 'deprived of the fruits of their labour' and therefore having to lay off men. Whether this was through bad harvests or the importing of cheap grain from overseas is not specified. The effect was that 'a great many men .... have been obliged thereby to the Overseer (of the Poor) for the whole support of their families to the ruin of the Ratepayers'. Apart from occasional casual employment on 'the Public roads' no work at all was available for them ' '
3 Job Creation in the 1820s
Remedy I: Job Creation
The meeting established a Committee to superintend 'the management of the poor', and resolved on a scheme that aimed both to encourage the farmers to maintain a proper quota of men and to provide at least some work for the unemployed. The scheme was based on the calculation that every farmer should employ two men - a horseman and a labourer - to cultivate each unit of land of £50 rateable value. Farmers continuing to give regular work to men on this basis were to be allowed the free services of men, otherwise unemployed, according to the extent of their land. The Committee's decision in assessing what men should go where, and when, was to be 'final'.
We do not know about the successfulness or otherwise of this scheme, But five years later Cratfield embarked on a similar, but more complicated, plan. And in 1834 William Fisher of Cratfield, a neighbouring parish, wrote to the chairman of Fressingfield Parish Council recording that it was operating 'effectively' and could be strongly recommended. Even so he adds: 'I confess
Contents p 431 Edition June 1, 2008 it is a great evil that we are compelled to have recourse to such measures but in the present times, of Two Evils, we must choose the least.'
Remedy II: Control of Mechanisation
A year and a half after the inauguration of Fressingfield's 'Job Creation Scheme', the farmers of the parish, still acutely aware of the extent of unemployment, met together to stave off the effects of the mechanisation which the Industrial Revolution was bringing to the countryside. This was their decision: 'We the undersigned (37) Farmers in the Parish,... , do hereby agree to suspend the use of Threshing Machines, for all sorts of Corn or Grain (seeds excepted) on our respective Occupations, until it is mutually agreed by the voice of the Parish to take them again into use.' This decision was ordered to be sent to all farmers who were absent from the meeting. It is interesting that the signatures included four Barbers, and (one each) Borrett, Davy, Etheridge, Larter, Mills, Seaman and Vincent.
4 The End of Cottage Weavers
Linen Weaving
The earliest reference is in the Will of James Taylor of Fressingfield9 dated 1758, in which he is described as a line weaver, and the text of the document shows him to have been a farmer as well. 1
Henry Penn of Fressingfield, Linen Weaver, who died in 1761, left "to my son Henry Penn the sum of fifty pounds with all the looms and utensils belonging to the Weaving Business (the Yarn excepted) and also my Bunching Mill". 2
Francis Gosling of Fressingfield who died in 1779 is described as "Weaver" in his Will, but there is no further mention of his business. 3
The Will of Samuel Barneby of 1782 left "to Ann Chaulker the wife of James Chaulker of Sileham Linen Weaver the sum of two pounds and ten shillings".
Robert Motts in his Will dated 1779 directed "Each of my two sons to pay ten pounds to be divided between the children of Robert Sowter of Fressingfield, Weaver".
The last references to a weaver in this period are to one in Laxfield. Robert Balls of Fressingfield in 1801 left "thirty pounds to Elizabeth Catchpold, wife of Edward Catchpold of Laxfield, Linen Weaver". And Lucy Wake in 1817 left "to Edward Catchpold of Laxfield, Linen Weaver. twenty pounds". (Robert Balls was Lucy Wake's uncle). 6 & 7
It is certain therefore that linen weaving was at least a cottage industry in this part of Suffolk as late as 1817 and the history of this occupation would be an interest subject for further research.
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In the Waveney valley district, hemp growing, its preparation and linen weaving had been important part-time occupations for many and a full-time one for linen weavers. It was these people who suffered from the effect of the industrial revolution: part-time workers lost their source of additional income, and weavers found their income steadily falling as hand-loom weaving was replaced by machines in factories in other parts of the country.
5 Parish Health Care: The Story of Boy Cracknell
"Boy Cracknell's" history is a sad one. He was born on the second of May 1784 and christened James. His mother Ann - nee Spaul - died on the eleventh of December in the same year, leaving a widower Philip and one other son also named Philip. The parents had married in Fressingfield on the fourteenth of January 1777, three months before Philip's birth.
In 1798 when James was fourteen his name recurs again and again in the Overseers' book. In March and April he had "plaisters". In May, Mr. Kemp, who would seem to have been more of an apothecary than a doctor, as his fees were a modest eightpence for plaisters and two shillings for attendance, was called in. In June two shillings was paid for wine and then, ominously, six shillings for wine when "boy Cracknell's leg was taken off". Beer was provided for "setters up", and "syer" for the lad, costing 3/92d. In October, on a happier note, there was "Ninepence to have his waistcoat mended", but in March 1799 came a late bill for £1.0.0 expenses when his leg was taken off By July wine was needed twice at fifteen shillings a time, and again "beer to setter up sixpence", but to no avail.
The last entry reads "Beer for burial of boy Cracknell, two and sixpence and to John Smith for grave and burial one and sixpence".
The Parish Register shows an entry for the burial of James Cracknell on the third of July 1799.
6 Enclosure of Husshaw Green
Copies of the Agreement entered into by the Proprietors of Common Rights over Husshaw Green for the allotment in severalty, and of the Award ......
Whereas we whose names are hereto subscribed have certain commonages or goings in or upon a certain common or green called Hussey Green lying and being in the Parish of Fressingfield in the County of Suffolk and within the Manor of Chevenhall in the said County in the several numbers or proportions set against our respective names and making in the whole one hundred and five goings And Whereas the said Common or Green has been lately measured or surveyed by Mr. John Ray and is found to contain in the whole fifty one acres and seventeen perches according to the map or plan made thereof And Whereas it will be much more beneficial to us to have the said Common inclosed and divided and our several shares thereof set out
Contents p 433 Edition June 1, 2008 and allotted to us respectively to be separately held and enjoyed by us as our private property or soil Now In Order Thereto we do hereby appoint William Catling of Metfield in the said County Gentleman and James Barber of Fressingfield in the said County Gentleman (two persons of skill and judgment) to divide the said Common or Green and set out to allott us our several shares thereof according to such our respective interests therein And we do hereby promise and agree to and with each other that we and each of us shall and will accept and take the several shares or proportions of the said Common or Green which shall be so set out or allotted to us by the said William Catling and James Barber in lieu and exchange of and for our present commonages or goings and all other our rights and Interest therein respective]y And we do hereby further agree that the expenses of the said Survey lately taken and also all the expenses of setting out allotting dividing and inclosing the said Common or Green and of making any Roads or footpaths across or over the same and all other charges and expenses whatsoever which shall attend the carrying of this present agreement into Execution shall be born and paid by us in the same proportions and according to our respective rights or goings upon the said Common above mentioned And that the same shall be so paid by us respectively to the said William Catling and James Barber at the time of our taking possession of the several shares thereof to be allotted to us as above mentioned Witness our hands the nineteenth day of December One thousand seven hundred and ninety three
Commoners Number of goings
Thos. Etheridge 24 Gert. Thomas 10.5 James Clutten 5 John Standord 4 Phins. Aldous 6 Jonathan Seaman 11 J. Micklethwaite 7 John Caley 14
7 The Education of Samuel Vince
SAMUEL VINCE 1749-1821
In the Accounts of Fressingfield Churchwarden's Disbursements there is an entry dated 26th March 1774:
"Pd. to Jn. Vince for repairs at the workhouse
and another on 4th November 1778:
12/4d'
"Paid to Jn. Vince as per Bill for Bricklayers work £1-6-4d"
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These payments were made, beyond any reasonable doubt, to John Vince, Bricklayer, of Fressingfield to whose wife Sarah a son was born on the sixth of April 1749. This boy was christened Samuel, and as soon as he was old enough he began helping his father at bricklaying. But he was destined to spend the rest of his life at quite different work and eventually to find his way to national fame.
When he was twelve years old the Revd. Warnes noticed the boy reading beside his hod, and realising that this was no ordinary lad he sent him to Mr. Tilney's school in Harleston where he became an usher, or assistant master. From here he was sent to Caius College, Cambridge at the expense of the Revd. John Holmes, Vicar of Fressingfield. Graduating as Senior Wrangler in 1775 he obtained his M.A. from Sidney Sussex College in 1778 and became a Fellow there until he married in 1780. His genius lay in Mathematics and Astronomy but he was also able to take Holy Orders, and while Vicar of South Creake in 1786 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, becoming Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge until his death at Ramsgate in 1821.
8 Population Fressingfield (1750-1850)
1 Growth 1715-1829
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2 Family statistics
The Registers
The Parish Registers of Fressingfield seem to have been very well kept, within the limitations of what was demanded of them at various times and having regard to the kind of people with whom they were often concerned. A wholly illiterate person, for example, might not know how to spell his or her name, an the Clerk might also be in some doubt so that the name Warren may appear in the Register as 'Woran' and so on.
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Only the dates of marriages and of burials can be taken as strictly accurate, the dates of birth of children varying widely from their dates of baptism. Some parents seem to have been very regular in having their infants baptised within a few days of birth while others brought their family for baptism several at a time, the ages ranging from perhaps ten years downwards In most instances the Clerk enquired into the ages of these older children and the Register is marked accordingly, though sometimes there is even doubt about this and we find entries such as "aged four years and upwards" or "over two years'' For the purpose of this survey the dates of birth have been used whenever accurate to a year, and in other cases the date of baptism has been taken as the date of birth.
The Information
It was not until 1837 that the Register was required to show the names of the parents of partners to a marriage. This gives rise to many difficulties in identifying individuals, difficulties accentuated by the customary use of only one Christian name and the almost universal practice of naming the firstborn son or daughter after the father or mother respectively. In addition to this only a very few different names were favoured during the periods a random selection of 218 boys showing that no fewer than 97 were named James, John or Robert. For girls, Mary, Elizabeth, Hannah and Harriet were favourites.
The size of families is interesting, the average being six children. Families of ten or more children were not uncommon, and there is a well recorded instance of a mother who bore fifteen children, raising all but three of them, and proceeded to live to the age of ninety-two.
The number of illegitimate children baptised in the parish seems quite high, being 7.6 per cent. of all births. There were periods when the term 'bastard was used in the Register, and other years when the entry might be 'James, son of Mary Blank'. By cross-checking with family records however, it seems certain that these cryptic entries also referred to illegitimate births.
Of the 90 unmarried mothers belonging to local families, 37 were subsequently married. In this connection 'local families' means those with two, or more generations resident in the parish.
There are 44 unmarried mothers whose names do not occur again in the records, inferring that these were either girls from other parishes who were employed in Fressingfield or girls from outside who for some reason brought their offspring here to be baptised.
Several cases appear of an unmarried mother embarking on the same course a second or and even a third time (one a fourth), and of two and sometimes three sisters following suit.
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A rather curious clause in a Will of 1822 states that a bequest to a certain lady in the parish is to be forfeited ' if she keep a dishonourable house or a house of ill-fame'.
The causes of death are never recorded in this period. Vaccination was not made compulsory until 1853, so that smallpox would surely have claimed a number of victims. Tuberculosis was uncontrolled as were scarlet fever, diphtileria and pneumonia; and infections which are almost unknown today: typhus, typhoid and dysentery were not uncommon. Any of these diseases, in addition to those usual today, could have been responsible for the very high rate of infant and child mortality. Of all children born to local families 9.2 per cent died before the age of 14 years and 10.7 per cent . before the age of one year . For illegitimate children in these age groups the these groups were 23.8 and 12.1 per cent . respectively.
3 Analysis of families of 2 or more generations i.e. families whose Baptisms, Marriages and Burials were all registered in the Parish and were continuous, either on the male or the female side, or both (referred to as "local").
A 5-generation family for example, is possible where the great-great grandparents were married in the Parish and subsequent generations were continuous therein.
(i) Average number of children per family
(a) excluding childless couples 6.0 (b) including childless couples 5.7
There were 38 families with 10 children or more 10 " 12 4 13 2 14 1 15 (ii) Average age at Marriage
Males 25.7 years Numbers used 115 * 'Local'
Females 23.9 years Numbers used 117 * 'Local'
* only persons whose birth dates are definitely known have been used.
(iii) Generations
There were 7 families of 5 generations 45 " 4 generations 103 3generations 70 2generations
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The above are all separate families, and none of the totals is included within the others.
(iv) Number of marriages in which the first child was baptised within 8 months of marriage; 'local' families only:-
108 in 246 marriages (43.9%)
Time variation:- 7 months to 3 days Average 4 months
(v) Bastard children:-
246 in a total of 3225 children baptised in the parish, or 8.2%.
Of the above, 113 are known to have been born to 90 mothers belonging to 'local' families, and 151 to 124 mothers belonging to other families.
Percentage of children used in (1) and (3) above who died:-
before the age of 1 year 10.7% aged 1-14 years 8.5%
ie 19.2% died before age 14 years
Percentage of bastard children who died
before age of 1 year: 12.1% aged 1-14 years 11.7%
ie 23.8% died before age 14 years.
4 Family Networks- the Etheridges and Kemps
The parish books show the degree of involvement of individual families in Fressingfield's 18th century social system. The Etheridge and Kemp families have been taken as examples of trader/craftsmen to illustrate the principles of family networking, and its subsequent fragmentation as the opportunities of industrial development began to impinge upon traditional village life. These changes affected all families, but it happens that the Etheridges and Kemps have a been the subject of intensive local genealogical research.
The services provided by the Etheridges and Kemps are referred to frequently in the town books during the late 18th century. Thomas Etheridge was a carpenter who made coffins, and did church carpentry, and the Kemps, father and two sons, were bone-setter/apothecaries.
The Kemps are first recorded as living in Fressingfield in 1601 and turn up in the parish records, as births marriages and deaths during the next three centuries.
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The Etheridges migrated to Fressingfield from the adjacent village of Stradbroke in the early 18th century, and Thomas was the first of their children to be baptised in Fressingfield church in 1710. The family is still represented in the village today. It is a remarkable tribute to the research of David Etheridge, a descendant living in Vancouver who has established links between the three Stradbroke families that moved to Fressingfield, and at least 700 living relatives, many of whom are the outcome of emigrations to the Americas, South Africa and Australia.
In terms of their pre-Fressingfield origins, they had hardly moved. The Etheridges claim Saxon connections with Edric of Laxfield, a village adjacent to Fressingfield, and the Kemps with Norman Kemp an 12th century holder of the manor of Peasenhall, about 10 miles away. The origins of the name 'Kemp', again point to continuity with local Saxon invaders.
5 1851 CENSUS
(i) Size and Occupations
The population of Fressingfield on the night of the Census was 1,489, contained in 297 households and including 38 lodgers. 447 people had been born elsewhere in Suffolk, while 103 had been born in Norfolk and 33 in other Counties. The largest household lived at Chippenhall Green and consisted of 14 people - man, wife, ten children and the husband's parents. Households of three members made up the largest group of 51; those of four, six and five coming next in order; there were ten people living alone.
Thirty-nine households had a total of 43 House Servants living in, nineteen of whom had been born in neighbouring villages and two in Hampshire-re. Twenty-five houses contained a total of 39 lodgers, fourteen of these coming from other Suffolk villages.
Fressingfield was a mainly agricultural area, with 53 Farmers working, farms of between three and 320 acres, and employing a total of 250 Agricultural. Labourers. Included in this number were seven children under the age of 12 years, another 29 being under the age of 16. Apart from those listed as Agricultural Labourers there were two Farm Bailiffs, a Horseman, three Dairy Servants and eight Farm Servants. It is an interesting comment on the wages paid to Farm Workers in those days that of the 50 Paupers shown in the Census 37 had been Agricultural Labourers or were the widows of such men. Fifteen of; the Pauper Labourers were between the ages of 17 and 60 and were presumably unemployed and receiving Poor Relief.
Forty-three of the Farmers were born outside Fressingfield, while 63 of the Agricultural Workers were born in other places but in all cases these were within a radius of approximately 15 miles. The fact that the Farmers were more mobile than other workers suggests that the majority were Tenant Farmers.
The other occupations listed in the Census show that the village was largely self-supporting in the way of essential goods and services.
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There were 194 children at school, 69 being boys and 125 girls, 29 of whom were borders at a girls school which it is believed was located in what is now Richmond House (the Antique Shop). Many of these girls were from other localities, and three 16-year olds constituted the oldest scholars in the village at that time.
In the case of 79 married couples the husband was born in Fressingfield and the wife elsewhere, while in 27 cases the wife was born in the village and the husband came from outside. sixty-six wives were older than their husbands.
There were 19 Widowers and 45 Widows (6 of whom were between 15 and 45t and 89 single people over the age of 25.
Thirteen wives were shown as working, among a total of 38 women at work out of 529 women over the age of 10, but obviously many wives did paid work at home, such as Dressmaking.
In 52 families the son, or more than one son, followed in their father's occupation.
The population has been divided into age groups in decades and it has been found that in the three groups 30-39, 40-49 and 50-59 the males outnumbered the females. This is unusual but as there were 17, nine and three bachelors respectively who might otherwise have brought wives from outside the village this helps to account for the surplus of men in the three age groups mentioned. Also there were 10 widowers altogether in those groups.
The 1851 census returns for Fressingfield were analysed by computer as part of The Local History Classroom Project, and we are grateful to Mr B. Labbett and Mrs A. McLachlan for their help. sZ
(ii) List of Occupations other than Farmers and Agricultural Workers
1 Surgeon, General practitioner Middleton Suffolk 1 Veterinary Surgeon 1 Baptist Minister Wacton Norfolk 1 Vicar, J.P. Hertford Herts 1 Surveyor and Schoolmaster Hoxne Suffolk 5 School mistresses Harleston Norfolk Swaffham Norfolk Metfield Suffolk Samsbury Lancs Hopton Suffolk Swardestone Norfolk Norton Suffolk 3 Teachers Hopton Suffolk Swardestone Norfolk Norton Suffolk
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1 Superintendent of Governors 1 Printer, Land Surveyor etc 1 Watchmaker etc Diss Norfolk 1 Watch and Clock Cleaner Cransford Suffolk 1 Constable of East Suffolk Police Ipswich Suffolk 1 Midwife Ubbeston Suffolk 3 Millers (1 employing 1 man) Stradbroke Suffolk 3 Blacksmiths (each employing 1 man) Mellis Suffolk (2 in village: 1 at Wittingham Greeen) 2 Blacksmiths apprentices Cratfield Suffolk 4 Coopers (1 employing 2 men) Chediston Brockdish Halesworth 5 Shoemakers (1 emloying 1 man & 3 Mendham sons 2 Shoemakers apprentices 1 Boot and shoe maker Colchester Essex 8 Carpenters (1 employing 3 men) Weybread 2 Carpenters apprentices Pullham 1 Journeyman in Business 6 Grocers and Drapers Cransford Horham Wood Dalling 1 Tailor and Draper Beccles 1 Tailor (Chelsea Pensioner) Pulham 1 Wheelwright (employing 1 man) 1 Bricklayer and Plasterer Syleham 5 Bricklayers St James Elmham 1 Plumber and Glazier 1 Plumber and Glazier's apprentice Laxfield 1 Painter Pulham 1 Machine Maker 1 Innkeeper and Saddler Saxmundham 1 Innkeeper and Dealer Metfield 1 Innkeeper Hoxne 1 Butcher and Baker 3 Butchers Wingfield Halesworth Metfield 1 General Dealer 2 Tea Dealers Broome 1 Cattle Dealer Laxfield 1 Stock Dealer Laxfield 1 Marine Store Dealer Metfield 1 Marine Store Gatherer Metfield 1 Maltster Horham 1 Hickler (pauper) 1 Coachman (pauper) Cratfield 1 Thatcher 1 Sawyer 1 Hostler
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1 Bone Gatherer 1 Shopkeeper Stradbroke 6 Seamstresses Metfield Wingfield Brockdish Brockdish Woodton Norwich Bramfield 9 Dressmakers Brockdish Woodton Norwich Bramfield 1 Glover
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